k.d. lang makes Broadway debut in jazz show After Midnight

Award-winning Canadian singer k.d. lang took on Broadway Tuesday night, making her debut as the star vocalist in the Cotton Club musical After Midnight.

The Edmonton-born, Portland-based singer will continue in the New York musical celebrating Duke Ellington's years at the famed Harlem nightclub through March 9.

"It felt exhilarating and it felt very natural, to be quite honest," she said of her inaugural performance.

"I imagine that I'm going to be really inspired at the end of this run... I probably will take this experience and it will be like a diamond in my heart," she told CBC News.

Lang, 52, performs jazz standards such as Zaz Zuh Zaz, I Can't Give You Anything But Love and Stormy Weather in the show, which stars Dul Hill and features legendary bandleader and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis leading the Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars, a 17-piece band.

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A Canadian Music Hall of Famer and multiple Grammy and Juno Award-winner, lang is best known for hits songs like Constant Craving as well as her memorable covers of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and Roy Orbison's Crying. Throughout her career, she's explored a range of musical genres, from alt-country and rock to pop and folk to jazz.

In the attached video, lang talks to CBC News about making her Broadway debut in After Midnight.