Norah Jones - Not Too Late
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Norah JonesBrand: JONES,NORAH
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-01-30
Music Label: Blue Note
Soundtracks:
- Wish I Could
- Sinkin' Soon
- The Sun Doesn't Like You
- Until The End
- Not My Friend
- Thinking About You
- Broken
- My Dear Country
- Wake Me Up
- Be My Somebody
- Little Room
- Rosie's Lullaby
- Not Too Late
Free Music Notes for Not Too Late
Free Music Review: The culmination of experimentation
Hit: 5 Stars
Norah Jones is back, and she is making a statement with her third record, Not Too Late, an album that features no covers and Jones writing or co-writing every song.
For all of those New York indie-club frequenters who may have witnessed Jones' experimentation take full force over the past few years with the guitar, she gives up the piano in favor of what she claimed was an easier instrument for her to write songs to while on the road. The usual suspects are all here--Lee Alexander, Andy Borger, Adam Levy, Daru Oda. And hey, Come Away With Me fans!--just when you thought he might be too into his own career now to care about you or have time to guest on his old buddy's latest record, your favorite singer/songwriter Jesse Harris is back too, playing on the first five songs of this new record and making them beautiful as only he can do.
While I had heard some early live versions of a few of these numbers as well as the single, I tried to clear my mind of making any judgments before listening to this record and tried to forget that this artist had already made two records prior to this. Then I hit play.
Immediately I am hit with the sweet acoustic strings of Harris, and as Norah's voice kicks in, it seems as though suddenly I am whisked back to the days of "Don't Know Why." But as I notice the complete lack of piano, I see other huge, huge, huge differences here as well. This time Norah has written the song, this time there is a point, and this time there is even a story. In four minutes, Norah and her longest-running collaborator, drenched in a musical halo of cellos, tell the story of Annie, who has made the devastating mistake of falling in love with a soldier only to lose him to his duty, and amongst all this sadness Norah even conjures up the possibility of a love triangle existing. While I have heard "Wish I Could" before live, finally hearing the lyrics clearly and replacing flutes with violins completely alters the feel of the song and makes you feel like you are discovering this gem for the first time. This should seriously be the anthem of all soldiers' wives--lines like "He was my man but they didn't care/Sent him far away from here" will have even big lugs like me rubbing at their eyes pretending that we have an itch.
The epic feel of the album seems to musically come down a few notches, as "Sinkin' Soon" is next, a song that Norah claimed was recorded when all the musicians were buzzed/tipsy/drunk. As I hear the trombone kick in, it almost sounds like Louie Armstrong shouting "yeah yeah yeah." M. Ward pitches in with a background vocal guest appearance near the end of the song. This song has a very quirky vibe to it, but you can also argue that this song evokes images of a cabaret performing their hearts out. While this is the only song that Jones did not write the majority of, I have to wonder, who is the "captain" that she is talking about that causes the boat to sink? Could it have anything to do with the war discussed in the previous song? Hmm...I wonder.
At first, "The Sun Doesn't Like You" brings back memories of songs from the Come Away With Me era for me. But lyrically I find it is a whole `nother story, as Norah tells a story from the point of view of a fugitive's lover who is too caught up in the present to worry about long-term implications of the acts her significant other commits. Also, halfway through the song Adam Levy kicks in and contributes a tasty guitar solo that definitely does not remind me of any of Norah's past works.
"Until The End" is an open letter to someone that Norah knows, and while it's unclear if this is someone she really knows or is someone she has watched break down, once again it features Norah as the reporter of this individual's anguish--comparing this "apple queen's" situation to that of her own, and considering how tempting it would be to "relax a little." But in the end Norah resigns herself to the fact that both her and this other person will always "stay the same." Yes, this track might have you aching to wonder who Norah is talking about in this song, kind of how everyone went crazy when Evanescence put out "Everybody's Fool." Again, an Adam Levy electric solo is one of the highlights of this song.
By this point in the album, a theme is starting to come to light. The majority of these songs focus on relationships caught in the middle of an external conflict, and the listener will find himself/herself listening to Norah the reporter to find out what happens. But allow yourself to get too sucked into the story and you might be surprised by not getting a clear-cut ending--some of these songs end almost abruptly, like the seemingly soothing "Not My Friend," which actually seems to focus on a victim of domestic abuse and hints at how she might resolve the problem in the end--but this ending is left open-ended as the song abruptly comes to a close.
The next song, "Thinking About You" is one Norah wrote when she was still a member of the funk-jazz-fusion band Wax Poetic, with its frontman Ilhan Ersahin, and for those fans familiar with Norah's previous work with that band this will be a definite treat. Norah sings about indecision and flightiness in love here, as in one verse we hear her calling for someone to give her "cold hands a warm warm touch" and then in the next verse as she gets those hands she is already guessing it is "time for me to let you go." But by the end as she has let go she asks to "smile a little smile for me," seemingly having fallen back in love again. "Make up your mind!" is what I'm sure numerous people were yelling when they first heard this song, which was the first single off this album. OK, not really, but this is probably as safe and as jazzy as it will get on this album for most "Norah regulars."
We shift away from the love-amidst-conflict theme for a moment as Norah focuses on a "Broken" individual, and this song features Norah on the electric guitar. While I think Norah does a decent job, I actually had an opportunity to hear Adam Levy play this song live on the banjo instead, and I prefer that stripped down version a lot more as it fits with the description we are given of this fellow.
All the conflict finally comes to a head in "My Dear Country," where Norah rails against the system. Yes, I can't believe my ears, but Norah has gone political. Before you all go crazy against me, no she doesn't say anything about Bush. Rather, this has got to be one of the most tasteful political protest songs that has been recorded in a long time--she comments on the current uselessness of the American election system, but after some consideration decides that despite this horrible flaw, our "dear country" is not that bad after all--at least Americans are free, and since that is all she knows for sure she will just exercise her freedom to sing. Good call, NJ!
On "Wake Me Up" a 3-piece band fronted by Norah on guitar, featuring Andy on drums and Lee on bass, makes its debut here. We are presented with a song which comments on the tendency of people to want to ignore major problems in the world, as they are so stuck in their own daydreams, and the last few lines "I will still feel it later on, but for now I'd rather be asleep" sum up the apathetic tendencies of our generation to a tee.
Norah's fellow Little Willies bandmate Richard Julian drops by in "Be My Somebody" to do what he does best when he usually teams up with Norah--be her vocal foil. It would have been much nicer had his voice been higher up in the mix, but nevertheless this song can easily be mistaken for a poppy Little Willies outtake and is quite good. The symbolism here is interesting, as Norah uses items that were presumably thrown around in a fight interchangeably to describe herself, and then reduces herself to begging for her partner to stay.
Suddenly, you hear Norah counting off, and the acoustics of the album slightly change momentarily. One has to keep in mind that this album was recorded in a home studio, and therefore tracks like "Little Room" could have been easily recorded in a smaller room in the same residence, in order to reduce echo. This track features Norah on guitar, Lee on bass and Daru on whistles. Yeah--whistles! The girl should have just brought her flute for this one, but her call. Norah also wrote this song upon her arrival to New York, and the lyrics are actually somewhat of a foil to the "cute"-sounding music--summing up the theme of love amongst conflict more simply than any other song on the record--"And if there were a fire/We'd burn up for sure/But that's just fine with me/Because we'd be together ever more."
In "Rosie's Lullaby," we follow a girl who seems to have nothing left but her dreams, and as she looks upwards for some sort of answer it is the sea that responds, telling her to close her eyes and dream--and eventually, we find that she is calling to the "big ships" presumably because she is drowning, but "they just pass her by." The point here seems to be to act on your dreams as soon as possible, or it may be too late. Adam Levy comes back with another performance on the electric guitar and contributes vocals, and long-time collaborator Robbie McIntosh also joins with an electric.
But with the last track of the album, Norah seems to contradict this--saying that "it's not too late for love." This song features Norah on piano, Borger on minimal drumming, and bass from Lee--and this is basically the summary of the entire album right here. After placing love relationships in different scenarios and commenting on conflict that is occurring and managing to almost always find hope at the end of every situation or conflict, or always finding the good in something that may seem completely bleak, Norah has come to the conclusion that it is "Not Too Late" to change the way we are living our lives--while "it isn't easy," "nothing worth the time ever is."
And on this high note of hope, Norah closes the album. For those of you in Japan, however, you get one more treat--the adorable "2 Men," which features Norah commenting on the irony of the fact that she has wound up in a bar with 2 men whom she was involved with at one time--it's just Norah and the piano, a very short, very sassy little ditty that can also be found as the B-Side to the Thinking About You single.
With this album, Norah Jones has taken her music into her own hands. She has not just made an album full of love songs, but has painted pictures in every single song, setting each in a backdrop of conflict, and then presenting a different outcome in every different situation. In the end, she is able to sum up the content of her album in a universal message of hope and belief in humanity, not falling prey to the pessimistic portrayal of the world that so many artists, even those who are much more experienced than her, tend to have in their music.
It is this successfully navigated, emotional yet restrained observation of the human experience in this day in age that leads me to rate Not Too Late a perfect 5/5.
Not Too Late Poster
Album Details1. "Wish I Could" (Norah Jones-Lee Alexander): Norah Jones: vocals; Jesse Harris: acoustic guitars; Julia Kent: pizzicato cello; Jeffery Ziegler: bowed cello
2. "Sinkin' Soon" (Lee Alexander-Norah Jones): Norah Jones: vocals, piano; Daru Oda: vocals; M. Ward: vocals; Jesse Harris: guitjo; Kevin Breit: mandolin; J. Walter Hawkes: trombone; Lee Alexander: bass; Andy Borger: drums, slit drum, pots and pans
3. "The Sun Doesn't Like You" (Norah Jones-Lee Alexander): Norah Jones: vocals, piano; Jesse Harris: acoustic guitar; Adam Levy: electric guitar; Lee Alexander: bass; Andy Borger: drums; Paul Bryan: Chamberlain keyboards
4. "Until The End" (Norah Jones-Lee Alexander): Norah Jones: vocals, Wurlitzer, piano; Jesse Harris: acoustic guitar; Adam Levy: electric guitar; Lee Alexander: bass; Andy Borger: drums; Larry Goldings: Hammond B-3 organ
5. "Not My Friend" (Norah Jones): Norah Jones: vocals; Jesse Harris: acoustic guitars; Adam Levy: backwards electric guitars; Lee Alexander: bass; Andy Borger: marimba, cymbals
6. "Thinking About You" (Norah Jones-Ilhan Ersahin): Norah Jones: vocals, Wurlitzer; Chuck Mackinnon: trumpet; Rob Suddith: tenor sax; Lee Alexander: bass; Tony Mason: drums; Devin Greenwood: Hammond B-3 organ
7. "Broken" (Norah Jones-Lee Alexander): Norah Jones: vocals, electric guitar; Julia Kent: outro cellos; Lee Alexander: pizzicato, bowed basses
8. "My Dear Country" (Norah Jones): Norah Jones: vocals, piano; J. Walter Hawkes: trombones; Jose Davilla: tuba; Bill McHenry: tenor sax; Larry Goldings: Hammond B-3 organ
9. "Wake Me Up" (Norah Jones-Lee Alexander): Norah Jones: vocals, acoustic guitars; Lee Alexander: bass, lap steel; Andy Borger: drums
10. "Be My Somebody" (Norah Jones): Norah Jones: vocals, Wurlitzer; Richard Julian: vocals; Tony Scherr: electric guitar; Lee Alexander: bass; Andy Borger: drums; Larry Goldings: Hammond B-3 organ
11. "Little Room" (Norah Jones): Norah Jones: vocals, acoustic guitar; Lee Alexander: bass; Daru Oda: whistle
12. "Rosie's Lullaby" (Norah Jones-Daru Oda): Norah Jones: vocals, Wurlitzer; Daru Oda: vocals; Adam Levy: electric guitar, vocal; Robbie McIntosh: electric guitar; Lee Alexander: bass; Andy Borger: drums
13. "Not Too Late" (Norah Jones-Lee Alexander): Norah Jones: vocals, piano, Mellotron; Lee Alexander: bass; Andy Borger: drums
Produced by Lee Alexander
Norah Jones Photos (by Danny Clinch)
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Although the music of Norah Jones continues to blend pop, soul, folk, and country with a seasoning of jazz, her third album for Blue Note is the first where she's written (or collaborated on) all the material. Beneath the smooth surface lie darker strains on the album-opening "Wish I Could" (about a boyfriend lost to war), intimations of mortality in "The Sun Doesn't Like You," and the post-election horrors of "My Dear Country." The last seems to channel the inspiration of Brecht/Weill, while the equally bleak "Sinkin' Soon" is set to a jaunty Dixieland rag. Throughout, Jones's vocal intimacy and melodic warmth remain as disarmingly understated as ever. The soulful "Thinking of You," the countryish "Wake Me Up," and the syncopated "Be My Somebody" reflect the captivating style of her previous work. Although too much in the same midtempo mode becomes a dreamy lull, cut by cut, Jones's voice is irresistible. --Don McLeese
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