Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin RichmondBlue Note is one of the first and longest standing institutions of Jazz music. Since its formation in 1939 the label has put out albums by Robert Glasper, Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Gergory Porter, Bobby McFerrin, and so many more.
To celebrate 85 years of music from this iconic label, Justin Richmond and Blue Note’s current President Don Was recorded a series of interviews with the label’s past present and future: Ron Carter, Meshell Ndegeocello, Charles Lloyd, Julian Lage and today, Norah Jones.
Norah has been with Blue Note Records since releasing her juggernaut 2002 debut album, Come Away With Me. Her latest album, Visions, was created with New York’s Leon Michels of El Michel’s Affair. Their two distinctive sounds blend beautifully to make an album that stands out not only as a new texture in her discography, but some of her strongest work to date.
On today's episode, Norah Jones details her musical upbringing and what it was like striking it big with her debut album. She also performs for us, and talks about the musical freedom she's found as part of the Blue Note family.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Norah Jones songs HERE.
Pushkin. Blue Note is one of the first and longest standing institutions of jazz music, and it's always been one of my favorite record labels. It started when my guitar teacher passed along Herbie Hancocks made in Voyage and the self titled album from Art Blaking and the Jazz Messengers, the one featuring Monin. It was the music, of course that made the most lasting impression, but there was the artwork also. No label had cooler branding than Blue Note. Later I'd find out that was thanks to people like Reed Miles, who was the label's art director, and Francis Woolf, who was a photographer that became an important executive at the label shortly after its founding in nineteen thirty nine. And in those eighty five years, the labels put out albums by Robert glasper Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Bobby McFerrin, Gregor Reporter, and so many more. To celebrate eighty five years of music from this iconic label, I thought I'd get together with Blue Notes's current president, Don Was to speak with the labels past president in future that's Ron Carter, Michelle and Digiocello. Charles Lloyd, Julian Lodge, and today Nora Jones. Nora's been with Blue Note Records her entire career, starting with her Juggernaut two thousand and two debut Come Away with Me, to her latest album, Visions that was put out just this year. Visions was created with New York's Leon Michelle's of El Michelle's Affair, and there are two distinctive sounds, Nora and Leon's blend beautifully. Nora was the first interview Don and I did in this series. It came together quickly and Hollywood Studio Sunset Sound was kind enough to accommodate us at the last minute, not only for a chat with Nora, but also a performance. And I should tell you before we begin that you can binge the entire Blue Note Anniversary series early in ad free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus on the Broken Record Show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm Slash plus. This is Broken Record Liner Notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Don Was and myself in conversation with Norah Jones. To see the full video version of this episode, go to YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast Well I'm excited. This is the eighty fifth anniversary of Blue Note.
That's wild.
Yeah, the year twenty twenty four. We have Nora Jones here. We're going to celebrate the anniversary of Blue Note with the series of guests, our first being Nora Jones who's releasing her ninth album with Blue Note. The newest album is Visions. And also to celebrate, we have Don was president of Blue Note Records, and it's going to be a guest with us on these episodes.
Lovely to be here. Thank you man.
So excited to have the both of you here.
Thanks and.
Love the new album. I want to get to that, but first I want to ask Don your first recollections of Norah Jones as an artist.
Sandra Bullock turned me on to you.
In person or in the movie two weeks notice.
I was going to work on that movie. Oh really, and she said, we want to have this artist. You got to hear this record, and it was I think before the album came out, but she had an advanced copy and she sent it to me. I said, yeah, it's incredible. And then I ended up not working on the movie. But yeah, but you.
Were in it.
I was in it.
I was in a scene that Donald Trump was in also, which is so weird going back.
Yeah it was, Yeah, it was cool though. She was really sweet. She loved me so sweet.
Yeah, so she had how did she become aware of I don't know I had.
An advance copy of the record, I didn't, And she was looking for music to put in her movie. I can't even remember the name of the movie.
Two weeks notice Grant.
Yes, that's right.
Yeah, that's funny. I didn't know she had an advanced happy.
I think we shot it somewhere in November, and the album had come out in February, and it was kind of a slow, steady rise that year.
Yeah, it's that kind of is the perfect illustration of how quickly you kind of went from somebody playing music for fun to getting signed to recording an album and the album just sort of becoming a phenomenon. The fact that not early in your recording career you were and a Sandra Bullet. I mean, that was a huge movie at the time.
You know, it's a big movie.
Well, I want to get to that, but I'd kind of like to start at the beginning. Okay, I got this this image of grape fun Texas is then like the City and Last Picture Show like Tumbleweed. Yeah, it's not right suburb of Dallas.
It's a suburb of Dallas. When I was little was very small though. There was a McDonald's and nothing else. But it is now like one of the biggest I mean, it's just I think strip malls and chain restaurants, and it's got one of the biggest malls in Texas. It's quite the suburb.
Yeah, so it didn't have like a small town mentality to it.
Maybe it did.
I think it was kind of a small town when I was little.
I really was only there until I was maybe I guess I was there till ninth grade. I kind of bounced around, though, and I bounced around schools a lot. And we moved to Alaska for six months. Then we came back and I went to the Junior High and then I went to Colleyville, which is the neighboring town, and then you know what I mean, I was kind of all.
Over because it seems a little incongruous that the world's most successful jazz singer comes comes out of great time, but maybe not.
I don't know.
I was in marching band in ninth grade and they had a I had a saxophone teacher, John Rosina, and I had quit piano at that time because I didn't want to practice anymore, and he turned me onto this piano teacher named Julie Bank who lived in the area, who was a jazz pianist because Dallas, you know, and Denton, Texas is a big jazz college. So that kind of got me going on on the jazz tip. But I grew up singing in church choir at Grapevine Methodist Church.
Yeah, did you listen? Like, I got a son who's he's a year or two older than you, but I remember what he was listening to, and you know, like Paul Abduel and Millie Vanilli and Bobby Brown.
You were absolutely I loved Paul Abdul that album.
That one album was just it was huge when straight Yeah.
Yeah, it's actually it was a great record.
It was a great record. The songs are really good.
I think I covered one on my during COVID because I was just like in a normal Yeah, I was into all that stuff growing up. I listened to case case them every weekend.
Do you remember the first record you bought?
Yeah, it was digital underground. Wow, that's the Humpty Dances.
The radio. And then my first concert was EMC Hammer.
Wow. Yeah, were you a shy kid?
I was kind of shy. I wasn't that shy until seventh grade. I think in sixth grade, I was like completely unaware of how I was perceived, and I was completely open and you know that time in your life where you don't care what people think.
And then I remember.
There were some girls at school who were kind of mean, and I think I realized. For the end of the year, I just got really self aware and self conscious and I kind of went inside.
You know, did you kounter of racism.
Towards me? Not that I was aware of. I never was aware.
Yeah, I'm mixed as well. I'm black and white. My mom's white, my dad's black, and I feel like there was a time when it was less common to be mixed. So that was kind of like a weird experience not knowing many other people who were of two cultures. Did you feel of two cultures or did you feel well?
I felt a lot of.
I mean, I didn't see a ton of my dad. I grew up seeing my dad, but because I wasn't in his culture, so much. I didn't feel very of two cultures, but I did feel a little different, and people never really knew what I was, and they would always ask, but they always assumed I was Mexican. Especially Yeah, and then like they would speak Spanish to me, and then I wouldn't speak Spanish because I didn't know Spanish, and then.
I felt bad, you know, like I'm so are you like?
But then yeah, and then in high school some people thought I was half black and they just didn't know what to make of me. But I never encountered any negativity from it. Just nosiness, you know what I mean?
Yeah, what are you?
That question was always funny, but I never got offended at it.
So you fit in. I have this industry of being like like someone who was thirty years late for being a beatnik.
Well, I mean, I think as a kid, I was just sort of like other kids, just weird.
You know, all kids are kind of weird, I think.
And then in junior I when kids were starting to get into football, especially in Texas, at cheerleading, I wanted to be a cheerleader and my mom wouldn't let me because it was.
Too expensive, I think. And then.
And then I got into band. So then I was with my people, the band nerds, you know. So I felt like you always kind of find your thing. And then in high school, I went to Performing Arts High School in Dallas, which was completely all all people of artistic you know interests, and.
That's like I didn't like Roy Hargrove go to school and Erica Badri. Yeah. So it's a great school, great school, and there was an influence. There was an emphasis put on jazz.
Yeah, I think I was a jazz piano major. But I still had to take a classical piano class, which I was horrible at, and I still had to take I took Actually it was kind of cool because they had a synthesis ensemble. Wow, And so I took a synthesis class with my heroes, some guys in my class. They were older and they really, I know, they were just really insanely amazing musicians.
So that was really fun.
We had like a d X seven and a Moog and we all the teacher encouraged us to al write songs and we actually put out.
A cassette tape.
It was pretty cool.
I must somewhere my song I hated on it. I hated it so much because it had like synth strings on it, which wasn't really what I wanted.
But that can be a rough sound.
That's not what.
I was going for, but that's what ended up happening, and it was fine, but it was just funny.
You know, where did the where did the jazz come in?
After I quit piano because I didn't want to practice, My mom said I had to take for five years and then I could quit it. So on five years on the dot, I quit, well, yeah, sixth grade, and then she took me to a big band concert at University of North Texas, which is funny.
That's how I got into jazz.
But I liked it, and so she found a saxophone teacher and that's when I joined the band, and then he found me the jazz piano teacher.
Yeah.
Yeah, I never made my kids practice. They're all three of my sons are musicians, and I start making him practice was like the worst thing, supposed to be the thing from work too. Yeah, but you got the background so when you wanted to, when you finally felt compelled to play, you didn't have to start from scratch.
She was right, I had the foundation.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It was good.
So then you went to North Texas and then I ended.
Up going to North Texas. Yeah, for two years.
From that it was really a jazz program.
It was very jazz.
And in high school I was in the vocal ensemble too, even though piano was my major.
And then college same thing. I started out.
Just doing piano and then I joined the vocal ensemble too, like the jazz singers, and so I sang a little bit, but it wasn't my main focus for school.
You know. The only time I ever saw Willie Nelson get mad was in a session that we did, and he came back in the room to listen to a playback, and the engineer had his guitar down, and he just couldn't understand why anyone would separate his singing from his guitar, why they wouldn't be at an equal level, because to him, it was one form, one solitary expression was coming from his vocal chords or his.
Fingers, that makes sense.
Was there a point where the two became inextricable to you where you weren't like where it's just one expression.
I mean, I don't think I realized it till the last ten years, but.
I think in college because I sang and I played, but I didn't really do it together so much. I mean I tried, but I had a couple of demos where I did. But I got a gig at a restaurant in Dallas called Popolo's. It was an Italian restaurant, and somehow I got a gig playing every Friday and Saturday night and if I could sing too, because that wasn't really the gig, and they said sure, but not like every song, and so that was my paid practice and that's how they got sort of like the coordination factor.
Yeah. I don't know if people understand what a great pianist do. I hear it in your voicings are incredibly sophisticated. So you clearly study theory and you understand your scales and your modes and all that. And I just think you're such a great singer that it might get overlooked, but you're an incredible pianist.
Thanks, don I mean, were you.
In bands as just a keyboard player?
No, I wasn't.
I was still you know, as far as the piano players in college and high school, I mean everyone else could play circles around me. I never had a lot of chops. I still don't. I can't play very fast, but yeah, I have my own thing that has developed over the years. But I think just over the last ten years, even I've played so much more piano live, sort of stripping my band back into trio form at some point.
That I've just I just have gotten.
A lot better in the last ten years, and it's been really fun to play.
You know.
I feel more connected to it than I did even fifteen years ago.
You know, is it hard now when you have to when you're in a situation where you have an accompanist. Does that ever come up where you just have to stand and sing?
I'm not great at it. I'm much better if I accompany myself. Yeah, And like if there's a situation where there's a house band or a tribute show, I always try to play, you know, because I feel like I can do my thing a little easier. But it depends on the situation, of course. Yeah, sometimes it's fun to have an accompanist if it's the right person.
But so there is a bit of a willy thing though. It does feel like these are these I do these things together, not so much apart.
I do think that where I can do my thing, which is more special. It's when they're together.
Yeah, absolutely gives you something to bounce off of.
Yeah.
Also, I'm really not great at standing and singing because I don't know what to do with my hands. So even in college, I was in a couple of bands where I just sang, and I think it was a good match musically, but I always just they're looking really awkward.
That's the whole other thing, especially if you're used to it. But I think it's rhythmically too. He I was just I was talking to Lucinda Williams who's having trouble guitar, and she just what she's got no rhythmic point of reference. Bob Villains another person like that. His guitar playing was so essential to the way he sang that when he stopped being the primary source of accompaniment, his singing changed, and he's been looking for a band that would play the he plays.
But it's not that it's that he's doing the thing and filling the space with part of him. Yeah, probably it's more that that you're not filling the space. And Yeah, I feel like when I record, I'm always getting a better vocal and piano take. If I am doing it at the same time live. If I overdubbed the piano or the vocal, it can be cool if it's the first or second take. But the more I the more takes I do, I get really busy, or like I overthink or I over sing or I overplay, and it's just not the same.
All right. So when you when you finally go to New York City, you dropped out of college, right, Yeah, I did too. It's a good move.
Well, I didn't want to.
I didn't want to teach, so I didn't know that I needed a music degree. And I also failed my classical piano jury. That's I'm not proud of that, but I am not.
Afraid to admit it.
So I was also faced with like having to do six semesters of classical piano, and I had already failed the first one, which was pretty sad.
So there was no alternatives.
And it's really just because I didn't practice. It's not because I couldn't do it. It was because I didn't practice.
Were you busy doing other things besides practicing?
I mean I was practicing for other classes, I was playing in two bands, I was doing gigs, so I wasn't practicing my classical piano, got it or my arpeggios.
It was back to the original. Yeah, quandary almost of your piano plan, being forced to do a site reading and classical and when you got in your own thing, fell back in love. But now you're kind of going back to this is not the stuff I like.
Yeah, I didn't want to do that.
Yeah, it's interesting.
That's the same for me. I went to the University of Michigan, but this is in nineteen seventy and if you wanted to be in the music program, you were in the orchestra, or you weren't in the music program.
Yeah, exactly.
It was a recording lab or electronic music lab or no jazz pro and nothing like that. Yeah, so I knew what I wanted to do. So when you got to New York, were you did you? Were you thinking that you'd be someone like Shirley Horn, you know, a jazz singer.
I didn't really know, but at that point I was still way into jazz. And so I got a gig at an Italian restaurant, another Italian restaurant, but it paid way less than the Texas one, Did I tell you that? And I was just I was going to Smalls every night and watching people play and just so in love with going to hear music every night. I mean, I went out and I heard music every night of the week. And I would hear Brazilian bands, I would hear jazz I would go to you.
Know, there were so many different jazz scenes too. In New York.
There was there was the small scene, and then there was the tonic scene, which was kind of avant garde, and I knew some people in that scene, and I knew some people in that scene.
So there was all these different scenes and talk as in it was a club, a club called.
Yeah Yeah. And then I had friends who were songwriters and I would go see them play at the living room, right, And that was totally different for me because I had never thought about songwriting since my synthesizer class song that I.
I don't know.
I think I wrote two songs for that class, which I still think is so cool that he encouraged us to write songs. But I think I was embarrassed by them because you know, it was an assignment, and so we had to show them and we had to and we recorded them and they didn't come out or I liked it, but I didn't like the way I sound it. You know how it is when you hear yourself for the first time. It takes a long time to do it in a way that you like it. And so I was a little put off by myself, and so I didn't write after that at all.
Put you off to songwriting like that, Yeah, I was.
Like, oh, I'm not going to I didn't even think of it as something that I should do. It was weird now thinking back that I didn't even like occur to me that I could get better at it or do it differently.
I don't know.
And so then when I was seeing all my friends at the living room, I was I was getting inspired, and I didn't have a piano yet because I you know, I lived in a rental and I didn't have a keyboard or anything. And so my mom sent me this old guitar that I had in Texas that I knew two chords on, and I played like five chords. I learned five chords and I wrote come Away with Me one night, and then I started writing songs that's good. Yeah, And oh, I think because the guitar, I could play really simple chords on piano. I knew all these cool chords, but I didn't know how a song fit in, and they always sounded like a standard, and then it sounded not. I don't know the piano. I couldn't make sound how I wanted to write songs with at the time, I couldn't put that together yet.
Just you know, and I know that you don't think about genre. I don't know any musician who sits and thinks, well, I think I'll phrase this next line like a jazz line, and then I'll throw in it. It doesn't work that way you but you was there a disparity between what you were hearing at Smalls and what you were hearing at the living room.
It was just different. I mean, the people playing at Smalls were incredible musicians, and then the people playing at the living Room were playing really simple chords and writing really great songs.
And so.
I did all these gigs, but I wasn't playing in clubs yet because I wasn't really there yet. I did a lot of restaurant gigs where nobody listened. And then my friend Jesse Harris, who's the songwriter, asked if I would do some demos for him. He had a Sony publishing deal, and so I sang a few of his songs for his demos and he loved the way I sang them, and he said, let's do a gig at the living room.
Why not? It's just I mean, you don't get paid. It's not like that hard to get it. And he was already playing there.
So I said, all right, sure, maybe we'll do come Away with Me this song I wrote, you know, And so we did his songs, we did like one or two of mine, and my bass player Lee Alexander started writing songs. We did a few of his, and that was sort of the beginning of the first album. And it was a really big moment because it was the first time I'd played in a place like that. And they passed a tip jar around and you couldn't you could hear a pin drop. Nobody was talking, everybody was listening, and I hadn't experienced that yet. Really yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did it freak you out then? I mean, in the moment, it was nice.
I mean I was nervous, but it was nice.
You know, Wow, imagine that people listening.
So is that around the same time that the woman from me and my publishing came I forgot.
Her name, Shelle White.
Yeah, and she how did she end up coming to hear you play?
Her husband?
My bass player played with her husband, and I also did had done a gig or I ended up doing a gig with him, and so they were friends.
He was a musician, Jace Hopkins.
So they came. It was my twenty first birthday. We're playing at the garage on Seventh Avenue. We're playing jazz brunch trio and they came to hear us, and she's like, Hey, you know, I just was at a company picnic and I met Bruce Lenvall, the head of Blunot Records.
I'm going to set up a meeting. How about that? I was like, O, guy, whatever, I didn't.
Really did you aspire to get a record too?
I was aspiring to pay my rent and to get a at a non brunch venue. My sites, we're not very far ahead of my next week. Yeah, get out of restaurants and into a club, like I was so not even there yet.
But you were aware of the legacy of Blue Note Records.
I knew Blueot Records, so I was not going to say no, did.
You own some blue Oot Records?
Absolutely?
What were your favorites.
I don't know.
I always like that something else canniball outly record. I mean, I think I didn't even know which ones were Blue Oat, but I know I owned a lot of them.
Yeah, we'll be back with more from Don was and myself in conversation with Norah Jones, We're back with more from Norah Jones.
So there you are. You're in a meeting with the head of Blue Note, And how did that go?
Well?
I didn't know if I was going to have to play like that's not really that feels so embarrassing to me to go into an office and audition for somebody like that, So I didn't know. I brought in a demo. I had a three song demo that I brought around to restaurants to get gigs. And on the demo I put a song from Maybe College that I had recorded a standard, and then a song I had recorded in New York with a friend, a standard with basin trumpet on it. And then I threw one of the Jesse Harris songs from the demos we made on there right, and so Bruce listened and he liked it. And then after the Jesse song came out here goes, well, what do you want to be a jazz singer a pop singer? I was like, jazz singer, I'm here in Bluna.
Yeah, but I also like, I don't I don't think I was thinking about that.
Well, I don't think there's that big a difference. I've listened to all three of those. Yeah, and with the Jesse songs got like a is it a dobro?
The Jesse song we had played him was it was just sort of six eight like country song.
I mean, what instrument was there's something kind of picking on it?
There was no This was just it's called World of Trouble. It was piano and guitar, yeah, and bass.
So there was some textural differences, but you sang the way you approached the song and the voice he used. It wasn't like you sang, you know, Jesse song with like a twang. I thought you're incredibly consistent.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know when I made the disc. I mean I grew up mimicking my favorite singers. That's how you learn, right, who were there? I mean I tried say, I tried to mimic or Ethan all her background singing. You know, I was always doing the harmonies to Ain't no Way, but I mean Billie Holliday was a big one. I actually got a part as Billie Holiday. In the high school. They did a black history program every year and somehow I got to play Billie Holiday, which is crazy.
It was just a program with.
Lots of different stuff and I was like, I went into that was weird because I had to audition it. We auditioned in front of the whole group of students.
It was like.
And I sang I think I sang like fight and mellow or something. But the actual song for the performance was Strange Fruit, which was also crazy, you know.
And it's heavy for for for high school and to not only have to sing it in front of people and find them heavy.
Very heavy. And I'm also not black, so.
You know, people people thought you were, but I think I think maybe they did, and I know I did definitely did not tell them I was, but I think maybe there was a little bit of a mystery surrounding my background.
I'm not really sure. I'm actually not sure about that.
Did you try it? Did you try to sing it like Billy or.
Yes, Yeah, I definitely tried to out like Billy that was an amazing experience.
The director Edra James. She was incredible. She really taught me a.
Lot about embodying something, you know, because I wasn't into theater. I wasn't in the theater group, but she was like the theater director.
And she.
I don't know, the way she told me to do it was really it was very spiritual. She was talking about Billy in her life and everything, which, of course, you know, I didn't know that much about yet.
I just knew I loved her her singing. Yeah, so Aretha Billy, Billy God, Judy Garland. You know.
The other day that Judy Garland is one of the great I mean, at least twenty greatest singers ever.
Oh you had to convince that.
Well. I mean, I mean, I don't know. I guess people think maybe of her as hokey, but I don't know. I mean, when you think about the standards that have come from her, the definitive versions of.
Certain phrasing, brilliant, man. Yeah, it's all for real.
Yeah, an incredible. I love the Cardigi Hall Live album. It's really hard, a lot of heart. Yeah, And as I got older, I think I realized that that's all that matters really. And I remember in college once I was singing a stand. I was playing a demo for a friend of mine and he and it was a jazz standard and he's like, gosh, you really hear your Texas toang no matter what you do. And I was like, really, I didn't know that, and he's like, yes, it really cool.
And I was like, that's cool, okay.
And I think that was one of those moments where I sort of was like, Okay, I can kind of be myself and I don't have to imitate Ella, you know, or Seravon.
I loved Saravon. I was obsessed with Serevon.
But I mean, yeah, I mean some of my favorite voices are imperfect or weird or whatever they are, but they embody them themselves, you know, they're their own thing.
So then then you get the chance to make a record.
Yeah, And I.
Thought, like, call on Craig Street. There's a smart move.
Well.
I was obsessed with New Moon Daughter, the Cassandra Wilson album.
Is that the one where she does I'm So Lonesome?
Yeah, I mean I love that album.
That tied it all together.
Well, I loved that album so much. It was so different from anything else I listened to. And I remember being in high school, and I mean, that album was really emotional for me because my aunt was dying of cancer and I was listening to it NonStop in Florida with my aunt. So it was very emotional for me for that reason. But also it was the first time I had an album of a singer where there's just guitar. It's all acoustic guitars on that album. There's no keys at all, and it just had such a different sound, you know, it was earthy and kind of it had like some twang on it, and she's Southern, so she has a little twang and she's incredible, And yeah, I was cool.
It was great records, and so you called Craig and started to make it.
I asked Bruce if I could use Craig, and He's like, yeah, okay, I'll call Craig.
You discovered that it was probably a more function of mixing really than it's like you did achieve the thing you went into work with Craig for.
We did.
I mean, we made a twenty one We recorded twenty one songs in a week and mixed it immediately, and maybe it wasn't the smartest way to do it with. I think space is always the place when you're recording. And then we turned the record in and it got rejected, and I was kind of scared and sad, but also a little relieved because I didn't love I didn't feel like it came out exactly like it could have. But yeah, in hindsight, I think the mix says we're not right. And again I think Space would have been the place, and we would have used what was great, and we would have either redone or used some demos from something else, and then that ended up being what happened. We used three of the amazing takes from that that session on the record.
Don't know why. It's the first take right from your demos, right.
Don't know why was the first take of the demos we made because Blue Note gave me some money to make demos before they decided if they wanted to sign me. And then whenever Bruce heard the demos and he liked them, he called me and he was like, all right, this isn't jazz, this is country, some of it even, but I don't care.
Let's do it. Let's make a record. That's kind of how he was.
Funny review.
Yeah, all right.
It's just the greatest, wasn't he his enthusiasm.
Yeah, Bruce was great.
Yeah, Bruce was so great. But he was also so into jazz. I mean, later on, after many, many years, I made records that I made The Fall, and then I made Little Broken Hearts with the injer Mass and we went to lunch one day and he's like, well, I'm gonna be honest with you. I didn't like those records when you turn them in. They're not really my thing. But I think now I like them, and I get it. Now I get it, and I thought that was cool.
That's cool.
He never kissed my butt.
He never told me he liked him, so I never really thought about him not saying anything, but like it was fine.
You know.
I don't think you had a shift in sensibilities or a shift in your style of delivering the songs. You were always you, but the textures kind of changed dramatically, you know, which I think is a cool thing. That's what Miles did. You know, if you listen to Miles, whether it's with an electric band or whether it's I'm kind of Blue or in the Herbie Wayne Tony Ron band. He always sounded like Miles. He was always Miles, and yeah, he just kept it interesting for himself by changing the textures. After the success of Have Come Away with Me? Were you trying to avoid getting pigeonholed into piano trio?
I was just excited to keep finding stuff and I was really getting into songwriting. I only wrote two or three songs on Come Away with Me, and the rest were Jesse songs, Lee songs and a few covers, and I loved doing them. But I was excited to write, and I was getting into like bluegrass that year, and so the second album was a little more country, but everyone in the band wrote for it, and so we did everyone in the band's songs, and I wrote a little more, but we had the same engineer and same producer of course, a Reef Martin.
Let's talk.
Yeah, I got to talk about is you.
Know, certainly one of my great heroes and a guy who I aspired to I want to emulate. I don't feel I ever hit it, but I try.
No.
I mean, I think you have the same spirit a Reef did, which is just very nice. He embodied like sweetness and goodness and you have that absolutely.
That's very kind. Ye what bo was a like making records for him?
It ended up being so fun And I never thought I would have this old man as a friend. You know, the same thing with Bruce. I always thought that was so funny. I could go to lunch with a Reef or Bruce and we could drink Martini's for hours and just.
Blah blah blah blah.
Talk about relationships like I would talk about my boyfriend, you know.
What I mean, Like they were like my my friends. And I always thought that was funny.
How did a reef like join the project?
Actually, a Reef had just started either started or revamped I'm not sure. Maybe you know Manhattan Records, which was a sort of sister labeled to Blue Note that Bruce oversaw, which was either classical or musical theater kind of adult contemporary.
Yes, that's adult contemporary.
Yeah, it would have revaed because I think I started in the eighties. Maybe it started, probably was revamped.
That's what it was.
He left Atlantic and went to yeah do that.
Yeah.
So whenever the Craig Street version of the record got sort of rejected, Bruce said that he wanted me to go back in with a Reef Martin, and I was a little confused. I was like, well, you like the demos we did on our own, should we just do that? And of course I respected everything where Reef had done, but I was starting to get a little protective at this point and like stubborn, and I didn't know if he still you know, like I didn't know if it was going to be strings and stuff I didn't want.
On there, you know, or or what.
So I was a little hesitant, to be honest, even though he was a legend and I'm obsessed with all of the stuff he did with Donnie Hathaway and Retha. But then Bruce said, why don't we set up a meeting. We'll go into a rehearsal space. We went to this rehearsal space.
It was so silly and like he came in and he's this sweet old man and he sits down and I play or something. I don't know. It was weird.
And then Bruce said, well, you guys have a four days book.
In the studio.
He'll just come the first day and if it goes well, then he can come the rest of the days. I don't know if he ever told a reeffat but that's what was my understanding. And so because it was still just my band, he didn't hire the band. It was still in my band, and I hired the band and the engineer, and so that's what happened. He came in for the first day. He was super sweet, he had great like years, and he didn't try to impose anything on it, I think, which was my main thing. But he definitely helped guide us into the right directions every time, and all right, he can stay. It was like, kind of funny, but what would.
He make suggestions about.
Actually, When I did the Nearness of You, which is the old Hogey Carmichael ned Washington song and I play it solo, there's a part on it.
The nearness of You, the nearness of You.
Or whatever the melody is, I was kind of like, I think I had sung that song for a long time and I was kind of phrasing it a little loosely, and he said, no, I know, I like how you're phrasing it, but at least the first time, can you just hit the actual melody on the actual the nearness of because it's such a classic song, hit that melody every time I sing that song. Now I think about him. But yeah, stuff like that. Like he wasn't trying to put me in a box or change anything. It was just the stuff that makes the melodies, you know, the stuff that we needed to hear, picking a take, comping vocals.
You know.
He had this crazy like contraption. He used to camp vocals from the seventies, remember that.
Yeah, yeah, so you could just compare different different takes.
Yeah, he would put it into this movie box. It was like very old school.
He was just so cool and in the end, I just grew to love him so much. So I was just very I was just afraid in the beginning, you know, afraid of strings. And it's funny because he was a great string arranger and I almost never let him do an arrangement for me. Actually, for the Sondra Bullock movie, she wanted Nearness of You, but she wanted it with like strings or something. And that's when he finally got to do it. We took the album version and he just made a really nice string arrangement and then we used it and he was so excited.
And I remember he came into the shoot.
Would you mind showing demonstrating just the difference between how you were singing it versus how he wanted you to sing.
On the piano piana.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's miked up and running fantastic mm hmm.
H Vanana City.
And he was like, no, go Vanana zoze.
Is a vanas.
It isn't your sweet conversation that brings this sensation.
Oh oh, I think it's it's just the that's what it was.
It's just the nanis.
That's like I was doing something like that maybe, And he's like, it's just the naness of He's like, no, you gotta.
Do hit that.
It's just it's just the narness.
Or yeah, that's good advice.
I think it was good advice.
Yeah, do the melody at least once before you start messing with it.
That makes it sound sound advice.
Yeah, it's good advice.
And then for the second record, he he was also he came with us, we just we all had fun.
How did that did you? Just just because you just enjoyed his presence and so you asked him, I mean well, and because he was helpful and you brought him back.
I think we were going to go into the studio and he called me. He's like, well, I mean I don't want to come in later again, I was like, Okay, let's do it. Like I wasn't even I feel like at that point, I was just trying to record and seeing what kind of songs I had, you know, So I wasn't even really making the second album until we were almost done, if that makes sense, which I like recording.
Like that, were you getting you probably were getting a lot of people wanting to come in to make your second record with you too, I'd imagine, right.
I don't remember that happening at all.
Actually, I think we were pretty insular at that point, and I think Bruce really wanted a Reef to do it, and a Reef really wanted to do it, and we loved a Reef, so it just there was never any question of changing it up. I think it was more just like, let's just see what happens in the studio and not overthink it, because I didn't want to make it be a thing where we were thinking about it being a follow up in the studio, so and we kind of didn't. We went, Yeah, we went up to upstate to Alaer with a Reef for like a week or like maybe five days, and we had so much fun and oh the funny part was that when we recorded Come Away with Me, the one rule was that a reef leaves at six o'clock every night. And I remember at the time thinking that was ridiculous because we wanted to squeeze every second out of the studio and I was used to recording late and drinking and like, you.
Know, seeing what happened. But we did it his way and it was kind of nice. Yeah, And then at a Laire.
I didn't think he would go for it, because I know he liked to go home as he had a wonderful wife and dinner and you know, but he wanted to and he came up. We had so much fun drinking martini's. They called him the Martini. He used to make these very lethal martinis. And I remember him coming down in his pajamas one night we stayed up and he had gone to bed, and he came down in his pajamas with his Martini glass and to get some water from the.
Cooler in his Martino and then I remember him and his like his robe going up the stairs. It was cute. It was like such a.
Fun time so he could hang.
Oh he hung Yeah, he he just didn't want to make the work late.
You know, what do you think about that? The older I get, I start to think, you know, nothing good happens after eight hours.
Oh that's how I work now. But I'm also on a different schedule. But yeah, absolutely, I just want to eat dinner and like turn my brain.
Off after a five I don't want to. I don't want to.
I've ruined records by staying up for thirty six hours. Oh yeah, yeah, you know. I mean, thankfully you get some sleep and then you catch it the next day. I've ruined records. I would say, I've wasted a lot of time going down. Yeah, when pro tools first came out, all the plugins you can go down, the plug in the.
Abyss and the.
Tracks unlimited. It's not always a good thing. I did get some really good late night after a long dinner and a few drinks takes though, and sometimes that works out. But I never was somebody who did more than three or four takes of a song. Maybe there was an occasional like five or six takes, but but that was it. There was never we never beat anything into the ground.
You know.
That's good.
So that late night kind of thing works if you're just sort of having fun and playing music.
We'll be right back with more from nor Jones after the break, We're back with the rest of nord Jones's conversation with down was and me. Can I ask you about it? We're talking about the second record I don't miss you at all.
Oh.
Yeah, it's so interesting that that's you wrote the lyrics over. It's a Duke Ellington composition and you wrote the lyrics. Was that something that you'd done before and did did you? How did you find Melancholia by Duke Ellington?
Oh? I think my boyfriend was playing it.
It's such an amazing album, so beautiful, and that.
Song is just I mean, it was just.
So good that I think I was just like trying to learn it and I just started singing and it just kind of happened and by chance, and then I was like, maybe I'll try to record this, and then we did and it was so pretty and I was like, I don't know if we're going to get permission to do it like this, because I'm not trying to take advantage of this song or anything. I just really loved it and just it just, you know, happened, and luckily we got to do it.
It's beautiful too.
It's in the spirit of, you know, like how many great songs compositions, you know, did a songwriter come in later and write, you know, a beautiful set of lyrics to you know, And so it's totally not at all taking advantage and it's it's funny though. It's hard not to hear the duke, not to hear even just the way you play it now, you know it just it's kind of sounds like Anora Anora song.
I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful melody.
It's gorgeous.
Yeah, did you start doing that second album before the Grammys? No?
So this is all after No, we were just on tour for NonStop. We were, and then after the Grammys we did like a huge tour of bigger venues. Right, so we were on tour for at least two years. I feel like and doing promo and like I was exhausted. I was not having fun the whole time.
It's a whole lot to deal with. Yeah, I went through it a little bit with Bonnie, but I wasn't the artist just to I went from like not, I went from being a pariah as a record producer to being in demand and I feel sort of like, even now, thirty five forty years later, I'm still kind of surfing that wave a little bit. It changed one one night, can like change your whole reality. But had you had a year? I had a year of incredible trajectory.
Yeah, but then the Grammys just like was insane.
Yeah.
So, and then the next day my picture was on the cover of the New York Post next to Saddam Hussein's picture. It said hunt and Destroy, and then it was like a split screen, you know, it was like me and Saddam, and then on on the Daily News, and then then the New York Post the next day had a picture of my apartment and it said how much rent I paid? And then I couldn't go home again, and it was just weird.
How'd you deal with it?
I drank a lot, yeah I did, But I also had I had my band. We were having fun.
There was also a.
Weird thing that was happening because my dad and I had been reunited when I was eighteen, and we started to really find our relationship and it was great and it was really nice to have that. And I got to know my sister finally, my half sister Anyushka Shankar and I did kind of finally get to know my Indian side a little bit, you know, which was a really beautiful new thing for me. And then all the stuff that happened with the record and the way they talked about my dad or it was never quite right and somebody was always.
Mad, you know, like someone within your family.
Yeah, like either my mom felt like it wasn't represented right or my dad did, or you know, like it was just kind of that was actually a really hard thing for me to be honest.
You know, when people ask me about you, a lovely person, super talented, best singer in the world. But I also say, if they press for more details, I think you're the sanest artist I know because I don't think you're trying to fill some huge hole in your soul by in a quest for fame. I think you do music for all the right reasons, and if you can't do it for the right reasons, you'd walk away. I don't see you sitting up strategizing about marketing or the brand late at night or anything. Can you relate to that?
Yeah, I don't think I think about it that way. But I think also because the first record was so bananas. I don't have to and I know that I don't quite want that. Again, I don't like this new record I'm so excited about and it's like, you know, I want people to hear it. I don't want it to just go unnoticed. But I don't think I would want it to be like my first record ever.
Again, that was just too much. It was also really nice, but it was just like.
H and with social media now, it's just like you don't want to you don't want to get all in that, you don't want to get too deep in.
How long did it take to find a stable ground after all that, to think this is this is where I land, this is who I am, this is what I'm willing to do, this is what I'm not willing to do.
I don't know.
I think I found it quickly in a lot of ways, and it took a long time in other ways. I think I was very stubborn, so I definitely got comfortable with saying no. But I also was excited to try everything, you know, like sample everything that was put in front of me.
I was.
I got to play with all kinds of people, and you know, it was amazing.
Was the stubbornness, you having boundaries and knowing your boundaries, or was your stubbornness was it more of a youthful both?
Probably both.
My mom is a very strong woman, and I learned a lot about that and how to be like that.
In the best way. But I also think I was just young and extra.
Mom was a concert promoter.
That's how she met my dad. She wasn't when I was born. I don't think she was anymore.
But I've been that at any point. To be a woman in that era doing any amount of concert promoting for endy amount of time, I imagine, Yeah, she learned how to throw a weight around, you know.
I mean, have you met my mom. Yeah, she's a strong woman. I mean she doesn't she You might be intimidated by her. And you're tall.
She's tall, you know, Like I was just like a strong tall lady. So and I'm short, but I still have some of her spirit.
I think I was.
I think I was just very rigid in what I didn't want, you know. I remember early on the label wanted me to do a remix I don't know why, to get it to pop radio or something, and I was like, that's ridiculous.
That's not a musical reason. And I didn't like the remix.
That they gave me, and so I was like no, and guess what, it somehow made it on pop radio anyway.
But like now I'm.
Into that if it's for an artistic reason, it just wasn't. Then it was for the wrong reason.
I want to go back real quick, because you mentioned earlier writing come Away with Me. It was like the first song.
You wrote after the college day, no high school.
High school. Right in high school, I forgot that it's amazing a synth or it's crazy. Do you do you remember writing it? You remember that night, remember what inspired and how you felt?
And yeah, I came home from the living room seeing all my friends play, and I just sat in my tiny little bedroom and I played the five chords I knew and it came out really fast. And I didn't have a voice recorder or anything, and we didn't have cell phones yet, and so I wrote it in my notebook and I wrote the chord changes above it. And being the theory nerd I had, I had taken theory classes since I was in second grade for some reason. That's this kind of piano lessons I took, so I know how I knew how to notate like the numbers of the.
The chord, you know.
I was like one, two, three, one, six, five three, what, you know, Like I nerd it out. But I and I did that and I went to sleep, and then the next morning I was like, oh my god, I hope I remember that.
What was that?
Then?
I just was together. Yeah, I think it's a little different. It was a little different than what I had originally come up with. And I will never know.
Because I didn't record it. I don't remember.
It's amazing.
One time I saw Keith Richards. He was trying to do the same thing, but he didn't have the theory background. Yeah, so he was staying at the Sunset Marquee and had a piano in his room. Came to his room the next morning and he had taped put piece of masking tape down with numbers like the order that you play the notes in.
That's so funny, brilliant. Yeah, whatever method works for you.
Yeah, he was able to pick it out.
You can't forget it because you won't remember.
That's a good segue too, to the new because I was thinking about McCartney writing yesterday in his sleep Keith Richards writing Satisfaction in his sleep and thinking about, you know, your new album. I don't know if it's written in your sleep, but you maybe it was. You did there are some the point between you said, dreaming and sleeping and being awake.
Yeah, that that moment right when you're falling asleep. I had all these ideas, and I would just get up and like do a little quiet or try not to wake up my husband, or go to the bathroom and do a quiet little voice memo of it.
Was that uncommon before this occurrence.
Like that, It wasn't uncommon, but it wasn't as much. I think this was a lot. Maybe it was also kind of pandemic y times, and there was a lot of being awake in the middle of the night at that time and looking at the news and getting you know, feeling weird.
And I don't know, yeah, that was like this new album. Did you feel it's time for me to make a new album? Because you didn't have songs? Really right?
Not really?
I think I think it really came from working with Leon Michaels. I did a song with him, Can you believe this song? Because we had worked together. He played horn, he played saxophone on a few of my albums, and then we did the song together because I knew he's a producer and I wanted to put out singles.
You know.
That's like what I've been trying to do the last few years, just sort of not overthink things and try to work with people, low commitment, just one song, you know, And it was fun. And then we ended up making a Christmas album together and that was really fun.
You did a lot of tracks from that too.
Yeah, And then when it was done, I said, I miss I miss working together. Should we try to make a real album where there's no like rules and no Christmas parameters? And so that's what we decided to do. We just got together whenever we could. This album was different for me and that it was sort of pieced together whenever we were around.
So it wasn't like.
When I made the album with Danger Mouse. I didn't have any material, but we went into the studio for two months together to do it and come up with it. This was just here and there and dribs and drabs and all always short days because our kids were in school and just you know, eleven to two and all right, cool, I'll try to come up with some lyrics for that, you know, And it was so fun. He would play drums and I would play piano and we would just play and it just felt so good.
Yeah, Reef might have thrived in this eleven to two.
Yeah, talk about a work day.
It was kind of great. I kind of loved it because he has his own studio. There was no like booking. It was just like, hey, what day next week works for you?
Tuesday? Can we squeeze in two days Tuesday and Thursday? Okay? Cool?
Yeah, it's still fun to make records.
It was so fun, and I think from the minute we played. I remember when we did Can you Believe? It was just one of the funnest times I've had playing because it was sort of that time after the pandemic where I hadn't played with anyone in a year and a half and I don't think he had either, And it was just like that feeling when you're playing something and then you stop me.
He's like, oh, yes, that feels so good.
You know.
It's just like it's like you're back in college or high school or something.
So do you get that when you're playing live?
Yeah?
I mean you try to you don't always, but I think that's the goal, and I think playing with people who make you feel that way is the best way. I definitely feel like that when I play with Brian Blade on drums.
Oh, let's talk about Brian.
Yeah.
I mean, he was on those first sessions with Craig.
And he is a blue note artist, and he's a blue.
Note artist, and he's had a bunch of great blue note records too. He's on Charles Lloyd's new album. He did those records with Wayne. We've got another one coming this year.
Nice. No one plays like him, no, nobody, But I've.
Never played with him. What's that like?
Heaven?
He doesn't play anything just to play it. He's always listening, and he listens more than anyone I've ever played with. And he's a he's reacting in the moment to it in a way where you know, the music just feels so alive. But he's never reacting in a like a bullshit way. It's never wrong and it's never distracting or or or busy.
So it's never to assert himself no I'm here.
No, it's never for the wrong reasons. And his pocket is also super deep, like his groove.
Is so good.
Yeah, and his dynamics.
Really quiet yeah.
And then explodes. Yeah.
Yeah, he's he's like a sound person's nightmare.
But also it's a dream to watch him.
So when I saw you play with Wayne and Brian and there's Patatucci and there's Jason Moran.
Oh yeah, the Blue Note Anniversary, right.
That was I was. I was sitting on the side of the stage and I just remembered like I felt like I was experiencing some kind of cosmic truth and I wasn't tripping. This is like I got a little scared because it was like hyper real the things you guys were doing, And how'd you feel about that?
That was amazing. I also it was the first time I played with Brian in a long time. I hadn't actually seen him in a while. He played on my first two records, but we sort of drifted and he's hard to pin down. He's always so busy. I definitely hadn't talked to him, and I hadn't seen him in a long long time, like years, and I hadn't played with him, and so and to play with Wayne again. I think I had already played with Wayne and Herbie on a Jony thing, but to play with Wayne and Brian together and then Patatucci and then Jason Ran and Jason I think organized it.
It was so fun.
I did feel a little naked because I wasn't playing, but I also didn't feel like I could play with those guys like hang with them.
It was just so fun, and you could because you did well certainly there.
I have to credit Jason Moran for that. He emailed me after that, He's like, you know, you should make a record with Wayne, or you should like record with Wayne, And it was so like a little push that I needed. I wouldn't have probably asked Wayne to play on that record if Jason hadn't encouraged me. And then to have Brian and play with him again was so special, And yeah, it was sweet good night.
What was recording with Wayne? Like?
It was?
My friend Sarah and I were talking about it the other day. Actually, I was so nervous for it and a little underprepared. I didn't have that many songs. We had two days in the studio, and I knew we weren't gonna like do something a million times with Wayne, but I wasn't really sure of what was going to happen. And we did we did a song. We did a Horrace Silver song that I've recorded before, but I just loved and I knew he played with Horace at some point, and yeah, the song piece, which is just such an heavy song, and I don't remember if it was the first one we did, but well, first I went to Wayne's house in La and I for an afternoon and he just played me a bunch of stuff and talked about his He showed me his comic books that he made when.
He was a kid.
Did you see those? Yeah, that was an incredible day. Yeah, yep.
He showed me the action figures, and he told me about watching Fox News and playing soprano sacks just angrily and like writing while he was watching Fox News, and like, I mean, that was crazy.
It was an amazing afternoon. Yeah, he was really one of a kind. And so we had had that afternoon which was really nice. And they were playing this song piece and I play an intro and it's you know, patitude cham base, Brian on drums, Me and then Wayne and we're all in the same room playing the intro to piece and then I sang and he still hasn't come in.
I'm like singing.
I'm like, wow, he hasn't come in, but I'm just gonna I'm just gonna enjoy this verse and not worry about that. Come around in the second verse, he still didn't come in. I'm like, I wonder if he's enjoying this. But then, but I wasn't like over ruminating on it because it would have taken me out of it. And then as soon as we get to like the solo, I'm like, I guess maybe all solo I wasn't sure, and that he just burdered like he came in, and I think the thing I've learned, and I've noticed that Brian is like this as well. They don't really play until they have something to say. You know, there's times where Brian is sat out on half a tune. I'm like, I guess he's not gonna play, but then he comes in and it's like perfect interests, you know, It's like it's right.
So this incredible thing about Wayne it's playing can be like I've been down we're talking about before. I didn't realize it took me a lot long time before I realized Wayne was playing on that rack. I mean, yeah, I knew the sack sounded gorgeous, and then when you see the card like, oh fuck that make that makes that makes sense? It's Wayne, but you know, he doesn't. He doesn't impos It's not it's like a really it's gorgeous and it's amazing, but it's humble and it's there's no reason for it to be humble.
It's just spiritual.
I think it was just such a spiritual practice, probably to him. I mean that's how he can went about it.
Spiritual is the right word for it.
Yeah, he's not coming in in the intro just because he's supposed to. He was listening. He wasn't.
I don't even think he wasn't coming in because he didn't like it. I think he was just listening to see what it was happening.
You know, I don't know. It's cool. That was one of the cooler things I've got to do.
It's awesome and it's wonderful to really really holds up.
Are you ever tempted to do a larger project that really like like that's more in the jazz idiom like more squarely and that like in your like jazz snob.
You know, I'm not And I feel like that album sort of was that for me, but also it also wasn't completely all the way there either, but it was more than more than my first record. I'll say I still don't think my first record sounds like a jazz album to me completely, and so I think I think if I were bored and thinking about what can I do, maybe I would decide to do something like that. But I'm always finding other stuff that's inspiring, and if that's inspiring, it's because I'll find something that inspires it. I think, not not thinking let's do a jazz album, Let's do a country album, let's do you know. I just I guess I don't think that way.
When you're touring, do you have room to approach a song with beginner's mind every night?
Yeah, especially when I started without without the band and I'm just piano and entering it. I do, especially playing with Brian, because I know we'll just go to wherever it goes, and there's some arrangements we've found that way that we stick to a little more, and then some that are different. Sometimes a song is really dynamic in the set, and then I'll put it in the set the next night, thinking like, Okay, this is where the set will get big and it's like tiny, the song is tiny. I'm like, well that set was a little sleepy in that section.
But I prefer it that way, not knowing.
It's the I think it's the best thing. Man.
I've so fun.
Well, it's where it's where you get that feeling that from high school, where you're just like, oh my god, music.
Is so fun.
You know.
Are you still finding new things, like just a different way to move your finger to a different angle or something that will open up a whole new universal notes.
Yeah.
Sometimes, and sometimes I'll use the whole piano, which I never used to do. I wouldn't think to go way low or way high. And I actually back to your question though, I would say about doing like a jazz am. I think even though I started out interpreting songs and I love doing it, and I think I've found a lot more inspiration from writing in the last few years, and so it's more based on what I'm writing and what's inspiring me in that way than trying to make something sound a certain way.
I think did on your new album, which we were talking about before, I really love it and the joy you were you were explaining to making it. I feel like you can really hear it when you were writing the songs, thinking maybe like a staring at the at the wall or something, how it sounds on the record. Is that how you heard it writing it?
That one in particular, was there's nothing to it. It's just him on drums and me on guitar, just like having the time of our lives, going as fast as we can. He's like, we need something fast, Let's try something fast. I was like, okay, and then I just started playing. He started playing, and we were just like going trying to keep up with it, and then it was so fun, and then we just added words and like harmonies and that was it.
Sounds like nothing I've heard before.
Yeah, I like that one a lot. That's one of my favorites. And it's not like anything else on the record.
It's not it's not like anything really at all.
I don't know's that's a hard thing to achieve, you know, to do something that works on a basic level, that makes people respond emotionally, but doesn't sound like anything else. I think. I think that's the highest thing you can aspire to.
Is there anything from the new album you could play? Sure? What do you want could you do paradise?
Oh yeah, I could try that one. I mean, we'll miss the drums, but you can imagine a back there.
Yeah, well.
Take me back to paradise. I could make the sacrifice.
Ama to say, what else is they left to learn?
Watching all these fires balloon?
I'm waiting, It's true. I'll watch your fall. I try to stop, wait, turn for the pain.
To pluck, and know.
I've got to let you go again.
Over.
I never wanted this too d and no, it's time to let you go.
A lord, find a place to come you man, I'll take yours and you take mine.
I'm well again. You paid.
Conversations beading hearts to always beading.
I'm there, man, I'll watch you fall.
I try to stop, time for the pain to drop, and know.
I've got to let you go again.
All I never wanted this to end.
I know.
It's time to let you go.
Hell maa lolla, Lola, Lola la, lola.
I want you for.
I try to stop, wait, turned for the pain.
To drop, and no, I've got to let you go again.
And never morning this to th and no, it's trying to let you go.
So high it's great.
I didn't imagine singing that high today.
Wow, you sound cool, And it lends a whole new reference point for the song, a whole different.
Like thanks. I didn't know how that was going to go.
You're all over.
That's a loud piano, yeah, but it's.
Wild how it's a great example of how it's one connected to the piano plane.
Yeah, and I forgot there's some harmonies in there. I try to catch it with the piano, but I forgot some of them.
But it was cool. Some of them worked out.
It really reminds me of Aretha, you know, when when she played piano.
Well, she's one of my favorite piano players. I think I didn't before I even knew that was on the piano and all those recordings. She's always been my favorite, you know, one of the best feels out there.
We came this close to having her signed to Blue Note. Really yeah, And I went to Detroit a couple of times I'd known her, you know, and uh, and I said, she got to play piano. You We're just we're just going to do a thing like maybe you have Jerry Jamont playing bass and Narada playing drums, and maybe someone playing organ or guitarist, keeping a real basic and everything would stem from her piano playing. We're going to do it in Detroit, so she didn't have to travel, and she got sick.
Ah, so she was into it.
Yeah, she's totally. I was texted. I still have my text change. I believe I was texting with Resa Franklin.
That's amazing. I wish that could happened too.
But I'm glad you at least try. I'm glad someone was thinking of that about that with her.
Yeah, I find that, you know, some your favorite artists, you see them grow and do all these amazing things, and then as they get older, it gets there.
It's like she didn't play piano and everything anymore, and you miss that that basic core of like what you loved.
You know, her plane reminds me of like when I hear like I can always tell like Stevie on drum, When Stevie plays drums, it's so unique and it matches almost his voice, like the way he sings man, and to read the same, like the just the rhythm in her plane matches perfectly the way she sings.
Yeah, it's the pocket. You can't imitate that somebody.
You can hear it's so it's so churchy and it's so so soulful. What do you think is the best written song that you've ever heard?
I don't know a million of them?
Yeah, I mean what what?
What comes to mind?
Like okay comes to mind?
A song I always have loved is that song Heartache by Lowell George. And there's a version of it on Thanks I'll need to Hear, which is fine, but there's a version of it floating around there with Linda ron Sat like a demo of it. That is the version I'm thinking. And it's just a great song. And the way the chord structure is it kind of turns around and the key center changes and it's weird and it's just one of those songs.
Let's see if I know it? Oh Frankie.
Will oh No, I don't want to do that. Will am here love And I'm feeling no pain, but.
I know you heartache.
Stand in my way.
There's no use inuition because I ain't satisfied.
I'm fit to be missing with him you at my.
Side, I find another place to be. I'm tired to being your best friend. Look too, another.
For your companion, and when you.
Do, my pain wail. But there's no way at all when I'm feeling no pain. My body ye sickly, my mind is insane. I call on you Hardy to come show me how because I can't get no lower.
Than the whole man. I find another.
Places to be.
I'm tired.
Would be.
You besttray.
The two another for your companion and when you.
Do, my heart pain Willie.
It's crazy.
I usually played on guitar.
Oh that's beautiful, that's really nice.
It's a sweet one, right, But do you see how it changes keys?
It's weird, like that's what's cool about it.
It's not.
It doesn't seem like something that was overthought, but it goes It starts there and then goes to the minor five, and then to the and then it kind of stays there and then that becomes the center, and then it goes back to the sort of bridgie chorus and it goes back to e flat. Anyway, Nerd, when did you discover that song, Nerd town I discovered it maybe probably around this time I was making my second record. I think Kevin Bright, who played on my guitar my first record, turned me on too Little George that album. Thanks I'll hate it here, and.
Then somehow we found a bootleg of that Linda so in the in the demo that I love. It's low and Linda singing harmony on the whole chorus and it's just the.
Prettiest thing ever Brook. Yeah, I just love Linda.
Thank you so much for thank you.
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much. That was a lot of time and you're very forthcoming. It was beautiful.
Thanks Norah Jones for sharing her incredible story with us. You can hear her new album Visions, along with our other favorite Nora tracks on a playlist at Broken Record podcast dot com. I also want to thank Don Was for going on this excursion with me. We have four more episodes coming, so stay tuned for those. You can also watch the full video of this interview and other recent episodes at YouTube dot com, slash broken Record Podcast, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a product of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show, and others from Pushkin consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme Music's back, any beats. I'm justin Richmond.
