International Women’s Day
NEW RELEASE
Visions by Norah Jones
- ONE SONG: video of Staring At The Wall – a loose rocking song with buzzing, twangy guitar.
- PLAYLISTS: On Spotify and YouTube
- REVIEWS: The Line of Best Fit, riffmagazine, Glide
Jones in the studio with producer, musician and co-songwriter Leon Michels, a founding member of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
NORA JONES’ VISIONS
Lighter, brighter and looser
If a bunch of the songs on Norah Jones’ latest record feel like live demos it’s because a number of them are pretty much that. The rawer sound on Visions – her ninth album released today – speaks to the loose approach she developed with producer, musician and co-writer Leon Michels who observed with a laugh: “In the beginning it was pretty ratty-sounding.
“I was thinking to myself, OK, cool, eventually we’ll call in players and do really clean versions, which we tried a couple of times.” But Jones wasn’t having it. “Every time, Norah was like, ‘This is not better.’”
Visions blends an eclectic set of sounds – pop, country, folk, jazz – while its dozen songs cover the stuff of everyday living – love lost, insecurity, getting free, awakening. What sets her work apart are her signature vocals – sometimes smoky with an earnest lilt, always real – and her unique musicianship, especially her piano play and timing.
A regular person and a musician’s musician
In her 22 years making music Jones has distinguished herself not as an innovator but a top tier and probing musician. Her curiosity and deep musical knowledge move her to experiment with varied approaches and genres while collaborating with lots of different musicians.
During the height of the pandemic in 2020 she delighted her fans with weekly Thursday afternoon live-streamed concerts that lasted five minutes or, sometimes, half an hour. In Norah Jones ‘Live At Home’ she played piano and sang to her cel phone from her Brooklyn music room usually by herself and an occasional guest. It showed her as a regular person doing their best during isolation.
Last year she produced a podcast called Norah Jones is Playing Along, a set of 33 hour-long sets featuring her with a wide range of musicians from Robert Glasper and Andrew Bird to Alynda Segarra from Hurry for the Riff Raff to her half-sister Anoushka Shankar. Jones’ approachable persona and understated style make her an unlikely –and entirely appealing– best-selling star. Bravo to her. Happy International Women’s Day!
08 March 2024
REVIEW EXCERPTS
THE LINE OF BEST FIT / MAGAZINE
Everything began for Norah Jones with a quiet, but compelling strike just over two decades ago
Enter Visions, Jones’ ninth studio album with Blue Note and first of original fare since her criminally-overlooked seventh set Pick Me Up Off the Floor (2020). Yes, it is another masterclass from the songstress. This isn’t surprising though – Jones’ lyricism, superlative abilities on the piano and guitar, and skills as a vocalist, have ensured that every outing is an exciting experience.
RIFF MAGAZINE
Norah Jones’ Visions is a ray of light
by Sery Morales
Norah Jones’ newest album, Visions, swings the pendulum from darkness back to light. If 2020’s Pick Me Up Off the Floor was the dust on the windowsill clouding the view, Visions is the sun beaming through.
Hopeful and contemplative, these 12 tracks make the malaise of the pandemic feel like a distant memory. Pianist and singer-songwriter Jones maintains her understated style, but the album could hardly be called subdued.
GLIDE MAGAZINE
Simple is best on soulful Visions
In 2020 Norah Jones foreshadowed the gloomy pandemic period with her brooding, melancholy Pick Me Up Off The Floor, a fine album but not exactly one to play at a party. By contrast, here on her latest, Visions, she refused to write multiple verses on “I Just Wanna Dance,” instead simply embracing the words of the title in a joyous, repetitive refrain. The album is filled with those kinds of moments, expressing freedom and resolution of a mid-life crisis, like one basking in daylight emerging from a dark tunnel.
