Diane White

The rich laughter that punctuates Diane White’s speech at regular intervals conveys a great deal about her personality: she is exuberant, passionate and sensual. Diane loves life and the arts; nowhere is that love better expressed than in her music, which she has been performing since the age of three.

Diane was fortunate to be born into a family who valued the discipline and intellectual stimulation provided by studying the arts. The White’s enrolled their daughter in Russian Ballet and piano, providing her with the strong foundation that underlies her considerable talent as a jazz vocalist and musician.

Diane began her musical journey as an instrumentalist, developing a strong attachment to the growling sounds of the trombone; it took the persistence of a music teacher to push the dedicated brass musician into joining her high school vocal jazz ensemble. Diane soon found that her extroverted personality was well-suited to vocal jazz performance, and a new-found love for the genius of Horace Silver spurred her on to carve out her own niche as a vocalist.

Diane’s formal education led to the completion of a Jazz Studies degree in Fine Arts at Montreal’s Concordia University. In addition, Diane received invaluable experience training with an impressive roster of jazz gurus, including Mohammed Abdul Al Kabbyr, Andrew Homzy, Charles Ellison, Dave Turner and Ray Anderson. Anderson was the one who emphasized the importance of playing with as many musicians as possible in order to acquire new ideas and insights into jazz performance and composition.

Both her formal education and her strong sense of individualism have served Diane well. Her warm, inviting tone recalls vocal giants Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn and Horace Silver, but the overall effect in her vocal delivery is dominated by her own joyous sense of innovation. Indeed, it is Diane’s desire to marry innovations with the jazz tradition coupled with her incredibly charismatic live performances which are winning her glowing reviews from both audiences and critics.

The positive reception of Diane’s vocal jazz explorations only continues to increase with the release of her CD entitled Pure and Simple. Produced by Bill Stunt, the recording features twelve jazz standards that showcase Diane’s powerful but controlled voice, from the funky overtones of Cruisin’ to the quite sensuality of Afro Blue. Diane reveals ability to release the emotional lives of songs in an honest and engaging style.

Whether Diane is gracing the stages of Montreal and Ottawa International Jazz Festivals, the New York City, Eastern Europe or London club circuit, In the Middle East Entertaining the Canadian and American Troops or even the jazz venues in her hometown of Ottawa, audiences are in for a treat. Diane’s sense of fun and playfulness resonate in her performances. A notorious social butterfly, Diane spends little time poised behind a mic stand. A typical performance will find her wandering about a club, exchanging smiles and words with her audience, occasionally seating herself at a particularly receptive table for a few bars-or even an entire song.

While Diane has been known to break into impromptu tap routines during her performances (yet another of her myriad talents), rumour has it that Diane has been trying to figure out a way to integrate her passion for KickBoxing into her gigs. If she is successful, the tag “kick-ass performance” will take on a whole new meaning. Such is the talent of the irrepressible Diane White. Show less