Keeping Up With The Jones.
Sunrise again. Apart from Alicia Keys, there is nothing more New York than Norah Jones. Apart from Broadway and bagels that is...and come to think of it, how about Broadway Bagel? If you've never been there, you've never been to New York my friend. And if you correct me and say you have, well time to call it like it is and go there twice. Anyway I digress. "New York City such a beautiful disease", Miss Jones once sang back in her time with the Peter Malick Group. And only someone with Norah's playlist could call you a disease and make it sound like she loves you as much as you do her. Jazz club blues, smoky, smouldering vocals. Smoother than velvet, but like a revolver to touch. Ever since her encrusted in diamond debut in 2002, 'Come Away With Me' and it's self titled beautiful ballad (have you ever heard something sung so movingly as, "come away with me in the night/come away with me and I'll never stop loving you") Miss Jones has racked up Grammy's like Miss Keys and been as significant to the great American songbook as Springsteen. 9 majors and counting. Striking several significant solo notes and numbers. Like the 'Sunrise' morning after of 'Feels Like Home'. Or the in her own lane and stride of 'Not Too Late'. She's also been a major part of the classic collaborative process too. Duetting with everyone from Ray Charles to Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest. Andre 3000 of OutKast to The Lonely Island. And Rolling Stone Keith Richards to that talking, swearing, fuzzy bear 'Ted'. 'Take Off Your Cool' that never goes out of style and the bluesy inspired 'Illusion' the playlist pick standouts of this set she's also collected together and released. Jones has kept up, cutting records with Dangermouse, Daniele Luppi and Jack White and albums with her own bands like the super girl group Puss N Boots and The Little Willie's (Nelson not penises). She even made an Every Brothers covers tribute album with Green Days Billie Joe Armstrong, 'Foreverly'. All this has helped her solo work soar. From the change of tune in 'The Fall'. To the 'Little Broken Hearts' that pushed and cracked the envelope further for her most diverse set yet. And then in 2016 the Billboard top jazz artist of the 2000's decade took it back to basics and her signature sound for 'Day Breaks' like another sunrise on a new morning.
But now like a Keira Knightley movie getting over a douchey Adam Levine with the help of the Hulk whose just been fired by Mos Def it's time for Norah Jones to 'Begin Again'. And again this is something different from the dynamic Jones of traditional music texture. On the same day the South Korean mega pop outfit BTS arm themselves with another seven seals, Jones also releases a seven track album in what seems to be the new Spotify trend halfway house between EP's and LP's (SP's anyone?). Just see all those Kanye West produced works in one week last year from his own album, to the latest from NaS and Kid Cudi. Artists today know that in this social media age of the swipe audiences attention spans are waning as the classic album is dying to this cherry picking time for your favourite songs. Even so Norah still delivers her most compelling, cohesive set in years for something that plays like a short classic album from a bygone pre-digital era that didn't have to hit double figures to be top ten. These songs collected together almost like a greatest hits of her last couple of years or a Smashing Pumpkins week by week concept album over a calender are from sessions Jones has recorded since her last album, vowing to never stop writing and singing and to just she what she's got. It's a different and definitive route that works for Norah like her most amazing album artwork yet (think the video to Taylor Swift's 'Style' meets something her contemporary Ray LaMontagne would do). As in this time of an electric Joni Mitchell, Maggie Rogers showing she is the all American star of the future next door now, Norah Jones shows she is still more than a legend, but someone still crafting her own creative legacy for listeners, moving with the time signatures.
Dylan would be proud of the outstanding opener 'My Heart Is Full' too. This chant call to conscious arms looks at the world today held at the length of one and offers a hand and resolute chorus in unison. Before breaking into a beat of polished production straight out of the independent side of mainstream music's playlist playbook. Old meets new as the times are still a'changing, yet somehow staying the same like this vintage modern hallmark new start from the top from Jones. It like this all sounds like nothing Norah has ever done before. And she and we are all the better for it. As she asks, "are we broken" again and again, singing, "I can see (see, see)/People hurting (hurting, hurting)/People preaching (preaching, preaching)/People watching (watching, watching)/Some are listening (listening, listening)/Some are hearing (hearing, hearing)/Many talking (talking, talking)/Others working (working, working)" and at the top of her voice "I will rise" even more to the fade of one of the most important and influential things, simple in its nature, but profound in its statement that she's ever put down. Whilst the title track is back on that 'Day Breaks' signature, yet making that sound shimmer and shine in time with someone who knows a classic record of their own making is their daily bread and butter, on both sides. As 'It Was You' segues into a more grown up love yearn. Before 'A Song With No Name' over spaced acoustics dedicates short but lasting lines like, "If I go on my own/And I see you in my dreams/And I hope to again/I have silently schemed/If I had a gun/If I had a knife/If I was the one/If I was your wife". This sets standout session 'Uh Oh' sounds like a Luppi loop from the Dangermouse 'Seasons Trees' changing age. Whilst the fall piano of 'Wintertime' is the perfect song for that time of year as our pulled coats in N.Y.C. look to still escape that type of breezing and bracing weather. Whilst the perfect closer of this chapter, 'Just A Little Bit' is all you need for these relaxed but focussed sessions of tracks recorded over three days or less to show that this confident but care free collection is exactly what music needs when an artist is in her prime and stride. Purity and the natural order of songwriting and concept creation, birthed off a pad and pen, microphone and instrumental accompaniment. And if this today trend and musical styling really is a new beginning for Jones, then like Sam, play it again. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'My Heart Is Full', 'Uh Oh', 'Just A Little Bit'.
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