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Norah Jones
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| Norah
Jones, the talented singer,
songwriter and pianist, who has won over the world with her signature style,
unveils her new album, Not Too Late.
Her third outing for Blue Note Records, the album is a 13-track gem that
features, for the first time, Jones singing a full assortment of her own
compositions that plumb the depths of emotion with subtle levity and probe the
mind-set of living in a troubled world.
"Three or four
years ago, I was telling people that the one thing I wanted to get better at was
songwriting," says the New York-based artist who's a multi-Grammy winner and
whose albums are multi-platinum selling. Jones notes that she didn't set out to
write all the songs, but that during her last tour, she "got into a songwriting
groove that continued when I got back home. I love to interpret other
songwriters' music, but I don't always feel as close to them as my own songs.
These songs are much more honest, closer to my gut; this record is much more
personal."
Produced by Lee
Alexander, longtime bassist in Jones' band, who also shares songwriting credit
on many of the tracks, Not Too Late displays a self-assured maturity, with songs
that range in tempo and style while also maintaining the fundamental signature
of her heartfelt delivery. The 27-year-old Jones acknowledges that she's grown
as a songwriter, noting that the songs from her first two albums were among the
first she had ever written. "They're a bit elementary when I look back at them,"
she says. "These new songs probably have more of my personality because I think
they are a little more complex. Some of these songs are dark and cynical, but
there's also a sense of hope. That's why the album is named Not Too Late. I
liked the positive message."
Jones burst upon
the pop music world with her auspicious debut, Come Away With Me, released by
Blue Note in 2002. No one could have anticipated how much the then-22-year-old's
sultry and alluring music that melded jazz, country, blues and folk would
resonate around the globe. The album of originals (by her as well as by friends
such as Jesse Harris) and covers (written by Hank Williams, Hoagy Carmichael and
J.D. Loudermilk) has sold almost 10 million copies in the U.S. and over 20
million worldwide and swept the Grammy Awards in 2003. The album established
Jones as a star destined for a long career of pop music artistry. She proved to
be an original with a singular voice that's fragile, inviting and bittersweet
with equal measures of wistfulness and reverie.
Two years later
Jones followed up with the superb Feels Like Home, another engaging and
heartfelt album that—like her first—was the perfect blend of originals by Norah
and her bandmates and well-chosen covers. Feels Like Home debuted at #1 on the
Billboard charts, going on to sell over 4 million units in the U.S. and over 10
million worldwide. Both albums were overseen by legendary producer Arif Mardin,
who passed away in June 2006.
For Not Too Late,
Jones says the sessions were "fun, relaxed, just easy," in large part because
most of the tracking was recorded in her and Alexander's home studio. "This
album was made so differently than the first two," she says. "For those we
booked a studio for a week to record, then returned for a week a few months
later. That was great, but there was always a deadline, so we had a limited
amount of time. For this album, there was no pressure, no deadline. Blue Note
didn't even know about it; we were just doing it to have some fun and to see
what would come of it."
Jones explains
that many of the sessions were recorded at the spur of the moment. "It was
mostly asking friends, 'Hey, are you in town tonight? Great. Come on over.' It
was very loose and for the most part involved friends and people that friends
recommended." In addition to Jones' core band of Alexander, guitarist Adam Levy,
vocalist Daru Oda and drummer Andy Borger, guests on the album include M. Ward
and Richard Julian on backing vocals, Jesse Harris on rhythm guitar, Tony Scherr
on electric guitar, Larry Goldings on Hammond B-3 organ, Bill McHenry on tenor
saxophone, and cellists Jeffrey Zeigler of the Kronos Quartet and Julia
Kent.
As for the absence
of Mardin, Jones says, "It would have been nice to have that third ear, that
third opinion. Arif always loomed over us in such a wonderful way. He was more
of a nurturer than a taskmaster producer. He heard all our ideas and would make
suggestions, usually very minimally. And he always fit in with our crew. He was
our buddy."
While Jones was
touring in 2004 and 2005, she brought along an acoustic guitar, upon which she
wrote most of her songs, including "Until the End," conceived on an island in
the South Pacific on a rainy day during a tour break, and the ballad "Rosie's
Lullaby" ("It's so slow that you feel like you're underwater," she says), penned
in Australia. "The guitar is simple and a lot easier to carry than a piano," she
says. "I found that I started to write more with the guitar." After she got off
the road, she was eager to get those songs down on tape. Six of the songs
written on the road are on Not Too Late, while others were written at home. Most
of the songs were "pulled into better shape," says Jones, by Alexander. "Mostly
I'd write the songs and Lee would tweak the lyrics. He's wonderful at
that."
As for the role of
piano on Not Too Late, Jones says, "The piano is always loud in the mix, but
I've never been into it being the main rhythm instrument unless we're playing
something funky. I've always liked the guitar as the rhythmic instrument." She
pauses, then notes, "And I even get to play the guitar on the album." She plays
electric on the striking tune "Broken," which also features Alexander's "bass
extravaganza," as Jones calls it, where he overdubs 11 tracks of pizzicato and
bowed bass. She also plays acoustic guitar on "Wake Me Up," a slow and touching
number that features Alexander's lap steel cries. Interestingly, the leadoff
track of the album, "Wish I Could," is played without piano. It's a swaying
melancholic beauty played in waltz time, with Harris on guitar and Zeigler on
cello.
Jones says that
while she enjoys writing/singing love songs, she's stretching beyond that
scenario. "I like writing songs that are not so cut-and-dried," she says, "songs
with a twist to them. And it's hard not to be influenced by the news." So, on
"Wish I Could," there's a reference to a former lover sent off to war, and on
the dark-clouded, dream-shrouded "My Dear Country," Jones grievingly sings of
how there are far scarier things than Halloween. Also, in the quietly romantic
"The Sun Doesn't Like You," a tune Jones started while on tour in Brazil, a
sense of intrigue pervades the lyrics: "We can build a fire/In the open field
past the razor wire/Sneak by the dogs when they go to sleep/Bring part of
yourself that you'll let me keep."
Not everything was
written on the road. The lightly melodic "Not My Friend" came to Jones after she
watched a movie in bed. "I don't think I ever did that before," she says.
"Usually I like to sit and think about the film afterwards. But this time I
wrote." She notes that she watched the film again just to make sure she hadn't
lifted the tune from the soundtrack. She hadn't. She adds, "This song was fun to
record because we flipped the tape around to get that backwards sound on Adam's
guitar."
One of the first
songs Jones wrote for the new album is "Be My Somebody," a mid-tempo tune that
broke through a writer's block while she was home alone for a stretch while
Alexander was away producing Amos Lee's debut album. "I was depressed and I
couldn't write," says Jones. "A friend who I was hanging out with gave me some
good advice and once that song was done the rest came out a little easier." One
of the last songs to be finished was the title track, a hope for people to
change despite hearts pumped dry of blood and smoke-filled lungs. Jones wrote
the music and most of the lyrics a couple of years ago, but only close to end of
the sessions for Not Too Late did she put the finishing touches on the song
with Alexander's help.
While Jones wrote
most of the music, the Kurt Weill-ish sounding "Sinkin' Soon," the most unusual
and fun piece on the CD, was composed by Alexander with her supplying the
bridge. "We weren't able to play the song the whole way through before recording
it, so we all went out to dinner and drank some beer," says Jones. "I guess we
needed a little bit of that drunken sailor vibe because we came back and
recorded this on the first take." J. Walter Hawkes lends the trombone solo, "We
asked him to stop by because he's an old friend and a total character. His
plunger solo was perfect for this song." Also added later were backing vocals
from M. Ward and Tom Waits-like pot-and-pan percussion, including Jones' teapot
that didn't survive the session intact.
Two numbers on Not
Too Late hark back to Jones' early writing life. The Wurlitzer-vibed,
sweet-beauty "Thinking About You" was written in 1999 with Ilhan Ersahin of Wax
Poetics when she was playing with the band. "That song has always been in the
back of my mind," says Jones. "I always thought of it as too much of a pop song
for me, I thought maybe someone else could record it, and we even tried to do a
version of it for the last album, but it sounded too country-rock. It's nice to
know that we've finally found a way to make it work. When seven years go by and
you still like the song, that's a good thing."
Another oldie from
Jones' notebook is the short, whimsical ditty, "Little Room," written before the
first album when she was living in a "teensy" East Village studio with bars on
the only window. "It was a funky little room," says Jones, and it was also, as
the lyrics point out, a small haven for big love. Oda supplies the whistle solo
in the song.
Not Too Late
strikingly stands as the next step in the artistic evolution of Norah Jones.
With it, she has defied the flash-in-the-pan fortune of so many of her chart
peers, who are here today and gone tomorrow. Jones is here to stay, and Not Too
Late is further proof of the greening of her career.
See also: Lee Alexander |
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| Thinking About You |
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| Come Away With Me |
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| Sunrise |
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| Nightingale |
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| The Long Day Is Over |
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| 'Come Away With Me' certified quadruple platinum |
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Los Angeles
