Norah Jones: Where I Lead Me

Norah Jones is one of those artists whose reputations precede them. Like that of an actor from Seinfeld or an author of a bestselling series, Jones’s persona as an artist is, to some corners of the listening public, forever tied to her earliest moments in the spotlight, namely “Come Away With Me,” a massively popular hit from her debut album of the same name that, along with fellow Come Away With Me single “Don’t Know Why,” launched her career into the Starbucks-swilling stratosphere. That album, released in 2002 when Jones was only 23, has since sold 26 million copies worldwide, making it one of only a few dozen albums to earn RIAA’s Diamond certification.

For those who have been following her career since, however, there’s much more to the Brooklyn-born songwriter, now 37, than radio-ready crooners. A sampling of her catalog over the last 14 years shows an artist whose interests are as diverse as she is talented, with forays into country with bands the Little Willies and Puss n Boots; appearances on albums by artists like the Foo Fighters and Ryan Adams; several collaborations with Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane; and an Everly Brothers duets LP, titled Foreverly, with Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, to name a handful.

Most recently, Jones released Day Breaks, her sixth solo studio album and a return, in many ways, to the jazz piano roots that first earned her such widespread acclaim. The Blue Note Records album sees Jones join forces with renowned jazz musicians Brian Blade (drums), Lonnie Smith (organ) and Wayne Shorter (saxophone) for nine original songs and three covers that venture past the pop-jazz of Come Away With Me and pay homage to genre greats like Duke Ellington and Horace Silver.

A cover of a Silver song, “Peace,” features prominently on the album. It’s striking when considered within today’s political climate (“Peace is for everyone,” the song intones), especially when placed alongside fellow Day Breaks track and Jones original “Flipside,” an overtly political song that was inspired by the Les McCann/Eddie Harris classic “Compared To What.” “The Horace Silver song, I had covered that song years ago,” Jones says. “I put it on an EP that I put out, and I just thought, ‘Well, this song seems appropriate right now.’ I just kind of had the urge to sing those lyrics.”

Jones is very much an inspiration-driven writer, which likely contributes to the breadth of musical styles found in her catalog. “What I’ve learned is that sitting down like it’s a job every day and doing it doesn’t necessarily work for me,” she explains. “I’ve tried to do it that way. For me, when inspiration hits I just try to capture it somehow, whether it’s on my iPhone recording or writing it down so that I don’t forget it, because that’s when it’s magic, you know. It’s inspiring and it just kind of comes out. You don’t know where it comes from necessarily.”

Day Breaks follows Jones’s most recent solo album, 2012’s Little Broken Hearts, a stellar collection produced by Danger Mouse that is perhaps her most drastic sonic departure to date. Relative to her other albums, Little Broken Hearts was not a huge commercial success and is her only full-length effort that hasn’t been certified Platinum. Critics, however, spoke highly of the album, which sees Jones dabbling in more experimental arrangements and exploring lyrical themes, like a then-recent breakup, far darker than any she had before. (The song “Miriam,” a sparse, haunting standout from the album, contains lines like “You know you done me wrong/ I’m gonna smile when I take your life.”)

That Jones would revisit her roots after such a shift is, then, not entirely surprising. She also attributes the decision to time spent back on the piano, her instrument of choice, while playing solo gigs over the last couple of years. “I don’t know a ton of chords on the guitar,” she laughs. “I’m pretty limited, so the songs tend towards more simple chords on the guitar. On the piano, I can play a little bit more. I could write a song like ‘My Dear Country’ from my third album [Not Too Late] or a song like [Day Breaks track] ‘It’s A Wonderful Time For Love,’ with a lot of different chord changes that I just wouldn’t be able to figure out on a guitar.”

Day Breaks is, in many ways, a return to form for Jones, but she’s still pushing herself forward, still following the preternatural musical intuition that brought her songs into the homes of millions of listeners back when her career first began. “For me, this is now a different thing,” she says. “Some people might not have heard my last few records and might think I only play piano. I think it’s fun for me to do whatever is inspiring me. I’ll kind of always follow that no matter what it is, even if it’s totally random.”