“Don’t Know Why” from Come Away with Me (2002)
The first song on her debut album. Norah Jones charmed many with the words, “I waited ‘til I saw the sun, I don’t know why I didn’t come” on the 26th of February 2002. The ballad (written three years previously by songwriter Jesse Harris) features dreamy piano and silky rhythms. The 22-year-old New Yorker entered with a song that deserves recognition not only for merging jazz, pop, folk and country, but also for her beautifully coy, detached and sensual voice that carries the song (a little like Carole King…). And the same goes for all the songs on the album. Raised in Texas by a single mother, the daughter of one of the world’s greatest sitarists (Ravi Shankar) knew her stuff: “With Blue Note being classed as a jazz label, many people quickly came to regard me as a jazz singer. But the label wanted this first album to sound like a singer finding her voice. It wasn’t purely jazz, it was a mixture of many different elements. There was some country and lots of different things in there. But in the end, they are just songs…”
“What Am I to You?” from Feels Like Home (2004)
Two years after the unexpected global success of her debut album, Norah Jones released Feels Like Home, an album that was evidently less surprising than the previous one but no less interesting. With more at her disposal and several well-chosen covers (Townes Van Zandt, Tom Waits and Duke Ellington), she moved gently away from an ambient piano bar sound to something larger and more ambitious in its arrangement. But much like with What Am I to You? her voice never fails to shine through… With help from two legends from The Band, the drummer Levon Helm and the organist Garth Hudson, this blues and country track that discusses the complexity of romantic relationships is cleverly delivered with sincerity, warmth and effortlessness. A timeless, laid-back success that pays homage to the South that Jones holds dear. And while Hudson’s organ may overshadow her Floyd Cramer-inspired piano (a Nashville pianist of the 50s and 60s), the “Norah Jones style” succeeds in showing new colors.
Norah Jones - What Am I To You?
norahjonesVEVO“Sinkin’ Soon” from Not Too Late (2007)
For her third album, for the first time Norah Jones penned all the songs. She no longer worked with producer Arif Mardin, who had recently died, and had distanced herself from the image of the dull celebrity piano singer and pianist that some critics were describing her as. This time, with the help of her partner and producer, Lee Alexander, Jones swears by the philosophy less is more. Everything is weighed up with this record and then stripped bare. Luxury and pleasure are thrown out the window and replaced with skeletal but sublime songs that almost sound like they could be demos. To call this record a ‘Come Away with Me Vol 3′ would be incredibly unfair. On Sinkin’ Soon, she even takes on the role of a female Tom Waits. It is a ballad fit for hardened sea-dogs. A song with touches of cabaret driven by stumbling pianos and a sickly trombone, and a special guest in the chorus, the excellent M. Ward.
“Stuck” from The Fall (2009)
After a lot of stripped back music, Norah Jones offers an impressive ensemble with The Fall. Enter the great producer Jacquire King and songwriter Ryan Adams, drummer Joey Waronker and guitarists Marc Ribot and Sam Cohen, to mention just a few of the participants on her fourth studio album that doesn’t shy away from her pop, even rock’n’roll, ambitions. The cult alternative country artist Will Sheff of the band Okkervil River also joined the party and co-wrote “Stuck”, on which Cohen’s scorching electric guitar joins a recently thirty-year-old Jones very much in her comfort zone. It is the story of a girl caught up with a cumbersome man in a bar and Norah Jones (more Fiona Apple than Janis Joplin here) sings with moderation, quashing any possible clichés that her words may contain.
“For the Good Times” from For the Good Times with The Little Willies (2011)
Along with jazz, country music is Norah Jones’ other great passion. Her own albums are a constant reminder of this, but The Little Willies, that she founded with Richard Julian, Jim Campilongo, Lee Alexander and Dan Rieser, allowed Jones to fully indulge in both sides of herself. Thanks to this cherished side project of hers Jones was able to revisit the great classics of the genre as well as its forgotten treasures, including songs by Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Fred Rose, Townes Van Zandt, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Lefty Frizzell. Recorded for the first time by Bill Nash in 1968, “For the Good Times” is one of Kris Kristofferson’s most beautiful songs. It is one of the saddest as well – again the story of a breakup – that many have covered, from Al Green to Ray Price, Perry Como, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lloyd Cole, Isaac Hayes and Dean Martin. Norah Jones and her four bandmates deliver a murky rendition, nurtured with a slight jazzy tinge. In particular, Jim Campilongo’s Telecaster combined with the singer’s piano create a delicate and touching duet.
“She’s 22″ from Little Broken Hearts (2012)
Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse is one of numerous collaborators who have left their mark on the career of Norah Jones. In 2011, they worked together on a project called Rome, a homage to Italian music and films of the 60s and 70s, co-written with Daniele Luppi. The following year, the duo, almost alone in Danger Mouse’s Los Angeles studio, recorded Little Broken Hearts. Norah Jones played the piano, keys, bass and guitar, while Danger Mouse handled the drums, bass, guitar and string arrangements. The amusing cover art of Little Broken Hearts (a pastiche of the 1965 film, Mudhoney with a big-breasted Russ Meyer’s) can perhaps deter you from the potentially more touching sequences. On “She’s 22″, Norah asks her ex whether the young twenty-two-year-old girl he is now with makes him happy. This folk ballad is emotional but is by no means dreary. Burton creates a magnificently melancholic and hazy track, weaving in minimalistic guitars, daring piano and distant organs. Her pained voice has the effect of proving her sincerity. Touching.
“Long Time Gone” from Foreverly by Billie Joe and Norah (2013)
Norah Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, friends for life? It indeed seems that way on this surprise 2013 album in which the unlikely duo pay homage to the eternal Everly Brothers. More precisely the 1958 album Songs Our Daddy Taught Us. “I thought it would be cool to revisit such an obscure record to rediscover its importance. Doing it alongside a female voice gives it a different meaning”, explains the punk singer who met Norah on a blind date. At the heart of this tribute to 50s rock with a country spin, the voices of Norah Jones and Billie Joe harmonize to perfection. On “Long Time Gone”, the union touches upon the sublime without ever appropriating the original version by Don and Phil Everly. A curious work indeed, but nonetheless endearing throughout.
“Don’t Know What It Means” from No Fools, No Fun by Puss n Boots (2014)
Another band that reminds us that Americana has always been an inspiration for Norah Jones. In 2008, with Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper, she formed Puss n Boots, a pretty trio of cow-girls who didn’t release their debut album until 2014. The debut was composed of original titles and tastefully picked covers by the likes of Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Wilco, Tom Paxton, George Jones, Jeb Loy Nichols and The Band. It is an album that conjures up images of an abandoned saloons, moonshine and landscapes dotted with cacti, the Rocky Mountains and great open spaces… Without revolutionizing country and folk rock, Puss n Boots take on a stance that is honest and simple yet beautiful (and never overly simplistic). It is Norah Jones who pens the moody “Don’t Know What It Means” that features lovely, twanging guitars and 50s rhythms. Like Neko Case doing rockabilly, she abandons late-night jazz clubs for a beautifully chaotic honkytonk where Bud and Black Jack flow like water…
Norah Jones | Qobuz Interview
Qobuz“Fleurette africaine (African Flower)” from Day Breaks (2016)
In 2016, with the album Day Breaks, Norah Jones dabbled with new, original compositions and covers (Horace Silver, Neil Young and Duke Ellington). This sixth album brings together her numerous passions, principally jazz and soul, even pop and folk. But it is nevertheless her undying love for jazz that shines through on this elegant record that never seeks to capture the fleeting zeitgeist. Over the years, her piano much like her voice has clearly become well-accustomed to altering between a certain nonchalance and purity, fierceness and banter. The entire ensemble is as intense as the finale of the disk: the impressive instrumental cover of “Fleurette africaine (African Flower)”, the masterpiece of Ellington (recorded for the first time in 1962 on the legendary Money Jungle with Charles Mingus and Max Roach). The track is interpreted here with saxophonist Wayne Shorter and the drummer Brian Blade. Throughout the tune, Norah Jones contributes her piano skills so unique that numerous copycats have failed to replicate it… “While preparing Day Breaks, I couldn’t stop thinking about Money Jungle and the track “African Flower”. I love it. It all sounds so ‘pure’ which acted as a source of inspiration for me. The melodies get stuck in your head. At the same time, it’s very fluid and touching. And I wanted us to sound that way.”
“Wintertime” from Begin Again (2019)
A great admirer of Wilco, Norah Jones has had fun covering “Jesus Etc.” on stage since 2008. Eleven years later, on the short album Begin Again, she includes two collaborations with the brain behind the Chicago group, Jeff Tweedy: “A Song With No Name” and “Wintertime”. It is with his slightly depressive words that the latter song begins: “I’m alone, but I feel alright / In the summertime and the fall / In the spring when the house is dark / Doesn’t bother me at all”. The song is classic Norah Jones, constantly reminding us that not one joyful word can come out of her mouth without somehow seeming out of place. With the help of the quilted percussion of Spencer Tweedy, Jeff’s son, the track conjures up the appearance of a vintage country ballad. Above all, Wintertime is a fusion of the two musical identities. “[Jeff had] already written a lot of the chords, the whole melody, and a lot of the words before I came in. His way of writing [and] the way he thinks about lyrics is a super different perspective from mine. It’s hard to describe a process like that, it just kind of goes back and forth until it finds its way.”
