Album Review: Norah Jones, Daybreaks

The sultry-voiced Texan has had a varied career since her breakthrough with the multi-Grammy winning lounge jazz of 2002’s Come Away With Me. Several stylistic about-turns in the intervening years have included successful forays into country, folk, blues and Americana as well as classy pop fare and film soundtrack work. Her most recent project – a charming duets album with Green Day frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong - saw the pair cover the Everly Brothers songbook with impressive integrity.

Here she returns to her earlier jazz roots with the help of some serious session heavyweights, including drummer Brian Blade, organist Lonnie Smith, and saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The dozen tracks here showcase her gorgeous, mellifluous voice and naturally instinctive way with a keening melody while the playing and production is demonstration quality.

Jones composed nine of the tracks, though some have echoes of earlier classics including, ‘And Then There Was You’ which sounds like a ready-made old-school torch song, while the jaunty, Ella Fitzgerald-sounding, ‘It’s A Wonderful Time For Love’ also has a familiar ring to it. Fans of the sound on her huge-selling debut will be drawn more towards a tune such as ‘Carry On’, which could have easily come from those early sessions. With gospel-like organ, her deft piano chops, and a gently soulful vocal, it clearly demonstrates why she became such a popular mainstream star.

She hasn’t entirely abandoned her love for a more contemporary sound, and a surprise version of Neil Young’s, ‘Don’t Be Denied’ from his elusive Time Fades Away album makes for an interesting departure. With a lovely brass arrangement and strong vocals she brings out the best in one of Young’s lesser-known songs.

The title-track is also more pop-sounding, and recalls Edie Brickell’s one-off hit ‘What I Am’, while more serious jazz aficionados will be impressed by her take on the atmospheric and rhythmically complex, ‘Fleurette Africaine (African Flower)’, a song synonymous with Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. Classy stuff.