m001's Full Review: Come Away With Me by Norah Jones
I owe my discovery of this record, and many others recently, to New York's WFUV, the radio voice of Fordham University and, in my humble opinion, the best college/public radio station around. If you haven't checked it out, you ought to, as they broadcast on the Web as well, easily located at their webpage, WFUV.org. And, if you're so inclined, become a member...
Anyway, they 'broke' Norah Jones, at least to me (!), and the world is a better place for it. Wow. What a record, what a voice.
Having heard the 'raw' versions of the songs that make up this record on her 6-song EP First Sessions (out-of-print, apparently), and having heard some live translations on WFUV, and having checked out her cover of Brian Ferry's "More than This" (as well as the tune "Day is Done") on a Charlie Hunter album called Songs from the Analog Playground, I still wasn't prepared for just how terrific Come Away With Me would be.
The voice... Well, it has a little bit of Ella in it, and a bit of Sarah Vaughn as well, although it has a smokier quality. She's able to belt out Hoagy Carmichael ("The Nearness of You") and Hank Williams ("Cold Cold Heart") with equal success, without unnecessary vocal histrionics or backflips. Subtlety. Now that's something you don't hear from either end of the female-pop-singer spectrum (neither the Britney Spears end nor the Celine Dion end); and I would classify this record as pop, because Jones sifts among a number of styles (including blues, traditional jazz and folk), carrying all of them off very successfully.
What we need on the next record is a bit more of her songwriting. She offers the very fine "Nightingale", in a bluesy style that leans toward pop accessibility but still manages to sound like nothing else you'll hear on your adult-contemporary-corporate-conglomerate radio station. She offers a couple of other tunes as well, but she shines brightest on Jesse Harris' "Don't Know Why" and "Shoot the Moon."
This is an outstanding record, from a compelling new voice (who happens to be the daughter of Ravi Shankar). Norah Jones reminds me of Eva Cassidy in that both transcend stylistic categorization by belonging to many categories but not wholly to a single category; of course, both have mined the same jazz-blues-pop territory to terrific effect. Not completely jazz, not strictly the blues and not wholly pop, Come Away With Me blends elements of all three into something very special.
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