From: David Luckin (David_Luckin_at_WJCT.pbs.org)
Date: 2003-06-13 13:05:14
Last night I saw Norah... If you get the chance you should too. A truly unpretentious artist who is not afraid to let her
bandmates step into the spotlight. Why people have called her a Jazz singer I'm not sure. It is abundantly obvious she can sing
any style with perfect ease. Here is how the local music critic saw/heard the show.
Norah Jones plays the Florida Theatre
By Nick Marino
Times-Union music writer
I guess I should probably find some reason to dislike Norah Jones -- she's too famous or she's too musically conservative, or
she's too musically conservative to be so famous. Something like that.
The truth is, though, I've adored young Norah ever since I stumbled across her playing in a ridiculously small venue a year and
a half ago, just a few months before she exploded into the unlikeliest pop supernova since that ragtag group of hillbillies on
the O Brother soundtrack.
Jones had me from hello at that first show, her steamy voice and old-fashioned repertoire somehow transporting me 60 years
back, to a time I never even lived through, when Billie Holiday was teaching America how to be sensual and vulnerable in a
single breath.
Remarkably, Jones hasn't lost any of that power during her dizzying, Grammy-winning ride to stardom. Thursday night's sold-out
show at the Florida Theatre felt like an intimate club gig by a girlish up-and-comer who's just tickled that anyone at all has
come out to see her play.
Jones is clearly amused by her own stardom. She's constantly making self-deprecating comments and laughing off cheers from her
rapturous fans.
After opening Thursday's show with Hank Williams' Cold Cold Heart and J.D. Loudermilk's Turn Me On, she explained to the crowd,
"We figured we'd do two covers after Gillian Welch, because she's such a good songwriter."
Welch is on tour with Jones, opening the shows to audiences of people who're likely to have never heard of her. She's a
terrific country-folk singer with a luxurious pacing and an intriguing voice, but she's no star. Still, Jones cheered Welch as
if she were her sister, and brought her out late in the show for a glorious cover of It Makes No Difference, a dreamy song by
The Band that didn't need improving, but got it anyway.
Jones can find new wrinkles in all kinds of old (or just old-sounding) tunes -- that's one of her biggest strengths, which is
good, since she's not yet as accomplished of a songwriter as many of the artists she likes to cover.
Again, I suppose I should care that she only wrote a fraction of the material she played Thursday, but it's awfully hard to get
upset about that when you hear how naturally she swings, when you see how generously she treats her bandmates, when you notice
how well she plays piano.
Beyond the cover songs Thursday, Jones performed much of her gazillion-selling Come Away With Me album, and also debuted
several tracks from her next album, a work in progress that she's reportedly dying to finish because she's a just a tiny bit
sick of the old Come Away material.
If the Florida Theatre show is any indication, her sophomore outing will have a little more groove to it, with tempos moving
from a crawl to a shuffle. Although her jazzy stuff is nice, I'd also like to hear her indulge her soft spot for country music
on the new album, as she did Thursday with a lovely acoustic treatment of Lonestar, the rare song where she stepped out from
behind the piano to take a simple vocal turn.
If there was a showstopper in the 20-some songs she performed in Jacksonville, though, it was The Nearness Of You, which
happened to be the rare song where she was alone at the piano with no one else on stage.
Seated at the keyboard and bathed in violet light, Jones came off like a lounge singer who'd hung around until well after last
call, just playing for herself. She may be a star now, such a big star that she's getting tired of herself, but she still knows
how to sound lost in a song. She came into the game as a romantic, and a romantic she remains.
David Luckin
NightFlight Host 89.9 FM NPR
WJCT Web Producer
100 Festival Park Ave
Jacksonville, FL 32202
904.358.6365