Norah Jones: The Light at the End of the Tunnel
Norah Jones has always followed her muse, even when it’s led her in unexpected directions.
“I just do what I want, and I’m lucky that I can,” the 44-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based singer-songwriter says with a laugh, while looking back on her 20-plus year career, shortly before the release of her latest studio effort, Visions. “I’m always doing stuff, so I feel like there’s never enough hours in the day.”
Since breaking out with her Grammy-winning, multi-platinum-selling Blue Note debut, 2002’s Come Away with Me, that restless spirit has led Jones to all corners of the music world and helped birth a steady stream of solo releases, which continue to blend elements of jazz, soul, country, pop and folk. She’s started roots-leaning side-projects like The Little Willies and Puss n Boots, spent time in the studio with modern rock titans like Foo Fighters and Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, jammed with Tedeschi Trucks Band and Willie Nelson, participated in the Rome project with Danger Mouse, Daniele Luppi and Jack White, and recorded with everyone from Herbie Hancock to Jeff Tweedy, Logic, OutKast, Robert Glasper and her father, the late Ravi Shankar, who she reconnected with later in the sitar master’s life. During COVID, she also launched the popular podcast Norah Jones Is Playing Along, a vehicle for her to have candid conversations and record with myriad musicians. Her fireplace chat with The National’s Matt Berninger and Bryce Dessner even led to a new version of their beloved “Sea of Love,” which was released this past fall.
However, Visions is as close as a return to form as an artist with such a singular career can come, spiking her trademark sound with some fresh funk and psychedelic flavors. Recorded over the course of an extended period of time with producer and multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels— who is best known for his work with Dan Auerbach in The Black Keys and The Arcs, as well as his own long-running funk/ soul/hip-hop project, El Michels Affair— the LP is Jones’ ninth record and first since her 2021 holiday collection, I Dream of Christmas.
“We got really comfortable together throughout the Christmas record so, when it came time to make Visions, we were already friends and knew how to create together,” Michels says. “A lot of the stuff for the Christmas record was just me and her playing everything and those songs informed the process for Visions. Norah lived close to me, so we could basically sneak in sessions between our kids’ drop-offs and pick-ups.
Michels, who first burst onto the live-music circuit as a teenager with The Mighty Imperials, was an early member of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and a key part of the extended Daptone/Desco universe. He has also made his mark as a producer over the years, collaborating with Lee Fields, Aloe Blacc, Marco Benevento, Chicano Batman and Hanni El Khatib, among others. For Visions’ nap-time-length sessions, Michels would have Jones over to his home studio in upstate New York.
“We first met when she hired me and Dave Guy to put horns on her [2016 record, Daybreaks],” Michels says, emphasizing her work in the hip-hop-adjacent space. “I’d always hear certain Norah stuff throughout the years that I’d love, like her OutKast collaboration. And I remember the Danger Mouse record when it came out because I was a huge fan of Brian [Burton]’s career and everything he did.”
The resulting LP, which was released on March 8 via Blue Note, kicks off Jones’ next creative era, and she plans to support the record with a lengthy tour that will include stops at New York’s Apollo Theater, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Morrison, Colo.’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Los Angeles’ The Greek Theatre, as well as a two-night hometown stand at Brooklyn’s recently reopened Brooklyn Paramount. In addition, she will appear at multi-band events like Ottawa’s Ottawa Jazz Festival, Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival and Festival International de Jazz de Montréal.
“I’m glad that I can occupy myself with music—it makes me happy—and I’m glad that we get to play shows this year,” Jones says. “I feel lucky. But I don’t think about it in terms of what’s a good, calculated move. If I have no songs, then I probably won’t be making an album. But if I have a bunch of songs, I’ll probably want to record them.”
There was a four-year gap between your 2020 release, Pick Me Up Off the Floor and Visions. Though the pandemic colored part of that time and you stayed busy with a variety of creative projects, including a 2021 Christmas record, was there a specific moment when you felt like it was time to start a new album?
I had some ideas cooking around during the pandemic, but it really started happening after I got together with Leon Michels, who produced Visions. He had played saxophone on a few of my records about eight years ago, but I didn’t realize he was a producer. I was listening to his band, El Michels Affair, and it’s just so good, so I asked him if he wanted to do a song together. This was the end of 2020 and then we got together and did “Can You Believe.” We just wrote and played it in the studio and it was super fun, so I asked him to do a Christmas record with me, which I was just figuring out that I wanted to do at that time. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do a Christmas album until I met Leon—I knew he would make it sound cool. And I feel like we made a whole album. The Christmas album is still a full studio album. It wasn’t phoned in or anything.
And then, when we finished the Christmas album, I started wondering what it might be like to do some stuff for a record with Leon that didn’t have those Christmas borders. We just started chipping away at it really slowly. And even after we decided that we wanted to make a record, there was no outline or idea, necessarily. It was just, “Let’s see what we come up with.” I had maybe six songs I wanted to work out and finish writing with him—and a few that were done—but, other than that, I was pretty open. We both have kids—we’re both busy. We literally worked from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., these very short but productive hours. We worked maybe once a week for a long time. So it took like a year and a half because we were so sporadic about it, but it was a really nice way to make a record.
Then, we finally released “Can You Believe” last year. We thought, “We’ll probably put it on the record, so we’ll just do a quick release of it with more to come.” But we ended up cutting it from the record because everything else came so much later that it felt like a set of music. “Can You Believe” was just an easier one to cut.
Though a few notable musicians contributed to Visions, much of the album is just you and Leon performing together on a variety of instruments. Was it always your intention to strip back the personnel on this batch of songs or was that more of a result of your quick, productive recording approach?
I’m a pretty laser-focused person when I’m working on something. Just having this schedule for the last 10 years now with kids, I’m pretty good at focusing that way. And Leon is too. Neither of us are very precious about things. I don’t think either of us like overcooked recordings, and I don’t overthink things on my records. I really like off-the-cuff takes. We both worked really fast for that reason—we connected on that kind of thing. For a lot of the songs, he thought we were making demos. I didn’t really think that way, but I also was thinking that we would probably go in with the band at some point.
But, I just really liked what we were doing. So though we did eventually go in with the band and most of the stuff that we tried to redo from the demos was great, I was attached to the demos. So we ended up using what we had already done for about seven songs. It’s just me and Leon throwing stuff at the songs in the studio, and then we had the band on about four songs.
Leon’s on drums for most of it—he’s got a cool thing on drums. I don’t think he would consider himself a drummer for hire but, honestly, I like the way he plays drums. Mostly, I was on piano, but there were one or two where I was on guitar and he was on drums. We would just bang out the form of the song until we felt like we had it right. I would sing the melody, even if I didn’t have the lyrics done. And then we would record the drums and piano or guitar together.
I’ve heard a lot of comments that it sounds very live, which is funny because we added everything on top. But I think that the base of me on piano and him on drums playing live in the room just has such a good energy to it. And it was always so fun. Every time we were done with a take, it just felt great. So we didn’t necessarily end up using the first or second take, but we usually went with the second or so take once we already had the form down. Then we would add vocals and tons of harmonies.
We didn’t add the other instruments until way later, though, eventually, Brian Blade, who has been playing drums with me for so long, came in and played on three songs and Jesse Murphy, who I’ve done some touring with, played bass. And Leon had a few people from his world come in and play, like Dave Guy and Homer Steinweiss, who plays drums on one song, which was super fun. We just went into the studio and did these songs pretty quickly. One of them we kind of wrote in the studio because we had more time and we were out of songs. [Laughs.]
Much of the album was written during the pandemic, against the backdrop of a trying few years. And Don Was, Blue Note’s president, has said, “When I first heard the songs on Norah’s new album, Visions, it was evident that she had weathered the storm and emerged with an enlightened perspective. She’s singing about being awake, wanting to dance, finally feeling free, being on her way to making it right and acceptance of what life brings. She’s seeing light at the end of a tunnel that had engulfed her four years previously and is offering guidance, comfort and joy to others who may find themselves standing at a similar crossroads.” How consciously were you considering the overall cultural ethos as you were putting your lyrics together for this project?
We did the lyrics as we went along. Some of the lyrics came early, some of them came later. One song was from 2019, and one started in 2016. I found a voice memo of it, and I didn’t even remember writing it. But the last four years had been so crazy for everyone, and everyone’s just gone through so much personally—reassessing their lives and all that stuff. And we were, of course, aware of what’s happening in the collective world—the collective consciousness. It’s just been an intense time for everybody, and I think the lyrics reflect all of that.
I also don’t usually know what I’m writing about until a little after it’s all done. I can look back now a little bit, but I still don’t know. I think it all connects—the songs are all very different musically, in a weird way, but the lyrics are what connects them. But I wasn’t actually sure how it all connected until Don said that to me. [Laughs.]
You started dreaming up several of the songs on Visions while in a trance-like state right before you fell asleep. Has that happened to you while writing your previous albums?
That’s where the album’s title comes from. It has always happened to me, but it happened more in this period. Those ideas would come during a meditation or right before I’d fall asleep, and I would have to get up and record them. I also find that, in today’s society, we’re so plugged into our phones that it’s really hard to get into a quiet place. And that’s when creative thoughts come. So I started taking walks without headphones on instead of listening to a podcast—I’m not trying to occupy my mind every second of the day. If I’m driving in a car, I don’t have to put the radio on. So I felt like I got a lot of ideas during those periods—I caught more ideas that way than when I was sort of always plugged into something. And that’s been a nice lesson.
I try to meditate every day, and I did mediate every day at a certain point, but I haven’t been as consistent as I used to be, but it’s good when I do. I usually fall asleep. [Laughs.]
Last April, you took part in Willie Nelson’s birthday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl and then you sat in with him at Queens, N.Y.’s Forest Hills Stadium during his Outlaw Music Festival Tour. How did that full-show collaboration come about and how did you prepare for your appearance?
I hadn’t seen Willie for a while, and then I got to see him at his 90th birthday last year, which was a crazy fun party. But I didn’t really get to see Willie a ton during that birthday party because he was so busy. So I was just talking to Mickey Raphael, and I said, “I want to come see you at Forest Hills. Can you put me on the list?” And he said, “Well, yes. But also, our piano player is actually out that week. Do you want to come sit in on piano?” And I was like, “Yes, of course.” [Laughs.] So he sent me the live recordings of the previous week’s shows. I just checked them out, and it was so fun.
I love Willie so much, but I also loved Bobbie, his sister and piano player who died a few years ago. She was a huge influence on me growing up because I was obsessed with Red Headed Stranger. And I feel like a lot of that gospel-country piano style that I have comes from listening to her playing on his recordings. So it was a big honor to sort of sit in her chair. I love his band, and I’ve known those guys since 2001 or 2002. So, it was just really special. I love how off-the-cuff Willie is. He’ll just throw you a solo, and you just gotta take it. [Laughs.]The songs were all pretty simple for the most part, so I felt OK sitting in with no rehearsal, but it was pretty fun. I brought my mom, and she had a great time.
Around the same time, you also joined Tedeschi Trucks Band on some Tom Petty, John Hiatt and Sly Stone covers during their Garden Party show at New York’s Madison Square Garden. How did that collaboration come to be?
I met Susan early on, probably in 2002. We did some benefit together and we became friends. And then when her and Derek would come to town, I would hang out with them, and we all became friends. So, we have a long friendship. There were periods where I didn’t see or talk to them for a long time as well, so it wasn’t constant, but I feel like, during the last five or six years, we’ve reconnected and really hung out a lot more. They are just such a special group of people. I love her so much, and I love Derek so much, and they’ve just got such a great crew and band. It’s quite a machine—I can’t even imagine having a band that big. I’m good with small-scale things. But it’s such a powerful band.
They always have a rehearsal room backstage and they jam, and it was so fun. I also got to meet Trey, who played that night, and that was so fun. [Laughs.] I’ve never met him before, but I have a lot of Phish Heads in my immediate friend group, so they were all really jealous. He was super sweet.
You experienced your first taste of success early on with your debut album, 2002’s Come Away With Me, but have never followed a traditional musical path, trying out different styles and bouncing between projects. How do those outside projects, like your country group Puss n Boots, inform the more high-profile albums you release under your own name?
I think everything informs everything that comes after, no matter what lane you’re in. But I do think that doing those side projects was important for me between these big world tours when I was so young and still kind of green. It kept me trying new things without all the pressure, and it was just fun to play music with friends in New York City. And also there’s that thing when you get off of a long tour and you get a real low swing of depression. So it’s good to stay active and do stuff.
You recently returned to the East Village New York club Nublu to perform with Sasha Dobson during a holiday show in December. You played at the original Nublu regularly during your early years and were part of the improvisational acid-jazz scene. How do you feel that formative period influenced your approach after you started playing out under your own name?
I was in a band with the owner of Nublu, Ilhan Ersahin, called Wax Poetic. I was in a really cool band in college called Laszlo, and then, when I moved to New York, I really moved here to play jazz. But then my friend Kenny Wollesen said, “Hey, my friend’s looking for a singer, I think you’d be good for it.” So I sort of joined this band with Ilhan.
It was really fun, but it was also really different for me. I’m in New York City all of a sudden and I’m 20. I’m in this band with these people that I’ve just met and we’re doing gigs. He had a record deal with Atlantic Records, so he was putting out an album with this band and I was the new singer, and we went on tour. I think it was my first or second tour—I also went out with Charlie Hunter around that time—and we went to Turkey. We toured all over Turkey because he’s Turkish and it was a blast. It was just a huge learning experience. I’m still friends with some of the people in the band and we were texting a few months ago. There’s an old video of us on BET singing one of the songs. It’s crazy, but it was fun. I loved the East Village back then. It was a good time in my life.
Looking ahead, you’ll return to the road this spring with your band for a series of dates, including stops at marquee theaters like New York’s Apollo. How do you shape your setlists and live show at this point in your career?
It’s always a puzzle, but it’s really sweet. I have a group of musicians, most of whom I’ve known or played with for years— some even for 20 years. Brian Blade is gonna be joining me again. I have a pretty awesome friendship and connection with him, and he’s been in my band the last five or so years, so we’re kind of on a roll. I have Josh Lattanzi playing in my band, and he was in my band for about 10 years previously, so I’ve known him a long time. And then, for the first time, I have two very strong female singers because there’s so many harmonies on the record. It’s always been my dream to have that, but I just never figured out when to do it. I’m doing it finally and it sounds really amazing. One of the women I’ve just met, Sami Stevens, but she’s awesome and we’re already close and it feels great. And the other one is someone who’s been my best friend for 20 years, Sasha Dobson. She’s in Puss n Boots with me and we have a really special singing connection, so I’m really excited to have her out with me. Sasha keeps texting me about these songs from my older catalog that she’s learning now that she maybe knew but didn’t know that well—and it’s really exciting because she is excited and it makes me happy to sort of dive into some of that stuff together. I always try to put together a show with enough old songs and new songs so that everybody’s happy. I like how old songs take on new lives over the years, and we’re gonna be harmony-heavy, which is always fun.
