Jazzed About Ms. Jones
By Josh Tyrangiel
During his 18-year tenure as president of Blue Note records, Bruce Lundvall has had an open-door policy for new talent. Anyone can call up the legendary jazz label, schedule an appointment and play him a demo. Lundvall has heard thousands of tapes, but only twice has a relative unknown walked into his office and walked out with a record deal. The first, in 1994, was Rachelle Ferrell, who possesses a dazzling 6 1/2-octave vocal range. The second was a tiny wisp of a singer named Norah Jones. "Norah doesn't have one of those over-the-top instruments," says Lundvall. "It's just a signature voice, right from the heart to you. When you're lucky enough to hear that, you don't hesitate. You sign it."
By the time Jones' debut album, Come Away with Me, arrived in stores in late February, her mythology was more famous than she was. In addition to having a Star Is Born signing, Jones is the daughter of sitar icon Ravi Shankar. Add that she's young and beautiful, with a lush voice and an eclectic songbook, and you have got a full-blown case of music-industry buzz. Rolling Stone and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY named her one of the top new artists of 2002, and she landed a coveted spot on the Tonight Show the day after her record was released. "I'm freaking out," says Jones. "Buzz is cool. Hype is not. I just don't want anybody to have any expectations. I mean, I'm 22!"
Jones grew up in Dallas listening to her mother's Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles records. (She won't discuss the circumstances of her parents' relationship, but she emphasizes that Shankar had a very small role in her upbringing; at one point, Jones and Shankar went 10 years without contact.) She discovered singing while attending the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (Erykah Badu and trumpeter Roy Hargrove are also alums) and pursued jazz piano at the University of North Texas. After her sophomore year, she took a summer sublet in New York City, where she waited on tables in the mornings and spent her evenings singing jazz standards in Greenwich Village dives. "It was pretty much everything I wanted," Jones says. She never went back to Texas.
On the night of her 21st birthday, Jones sang for a crowd that included Shell White, a music-industry accountant. White was so moved by Jones' voice that she approached the young singer and, while admitting she had no management experience, asked if she could make it her personal mission to get Jones signed. White e-mailed Lundvall, and after playing him a demo that included covers of the vocally challenging standards Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most and Walking My Baby Back Home, White had accomplished her mission.
"[Lundvall] asked me if I wanted to be a jazz singer or a pop singer," says Jones, "and I said, 'Oh, a jazz singer!'" But between the time she signed and when she began recording, Jones' tastes changed. "I started meeting songwriters and getting into songwriting myself," she says. "And now my CD comes out, and I kind of went a different way."
Come Away with Me is mostly an album of warm, languid pop songs. There are touches of jazz--a stand-up bass here, an offbeat drum there--but Jones' voice doesn't have the rogue spirit required for improvisation or the range for sudden emotional bursts. Her singing is beautiful, but her pacing and delivery owe a greater debt to pop artists like James Taylor and Carole King than to Billie Holiday or Nina Simone. Of course, that could change. Jones is so new to her career that her recent influences leave fresh imprints. "I'm into country now," she says with glee. Sure Enough, Come Away with Me has a Hank Williams cover, and the title track has echoes of her new hero, Willie Nelson.
Blue Note has branched out in recent years, but Lundvall was still caught by surprise when he heard Come Away with Me. He asked Jones to rerecord some of the material to try to make it sound more like the jazz standards he had expected, but ultimately he decided to let the album stand as it was. "The rules were broken a long time ago, and I'm certainly not going to let her go anywhere else," says Lundvall.
Jones got her way with Blue Note, but flitting into the public eye has forced her to confront the dangling issue of her famous father. Shankar, 81, has said he regrets not playing a greater role in his daughter's life. In early February, when Jones played a Manhattan show, Shankar, who often plays concert dates with another daughter, Anoushka, 20, for the first time saw his older daughter perform. The subject makes Jones uncomfortable: "I don't want to bash my dad--I love my dad--but I don't want to give him credit for something he didn't do. I grew up with my mom, and he wasn't around."
Her directness, both about her family and with her record company, will serve Jones well in the months to come. "When someone gets this kind of exposure, audiences sometimes condition themselves to be disappointed," says Lundvall. "Did he really say that?" asks Jones, laughing. "He's so honest. God, I didn't make this record to make a statement to the world. I just wanted to make a record that's fun and work with cool people." So far, so good.