Norah Jones

Exorcizing the ghost of a failed relationship via the time-honored tradition of the breakup album, Norah Jones luxuriates in beautiful misery on Little Broken Hearts. Liberated by the separation but not quite ready to let it go, Jones achieves a curious subdued tension here, dressing unadorned confessionals in softly stylized studio noir created with the assistance of producer Danger Mouse, who collaborated with her the year before on the collective Rome. Seeming opposites – the classicist meets the futurist – Jones and Danger Mouse are well matched, as both artists are not as set in their ways as their individual reputations would suggest.

It may be far too obvious to even mention that Norah Jones' follow-up to her 18-million-unit-selling, eight-Grammy-winning, genre-bending, super-smash album Come Away with Me has perhaps a bit too much to live up to. But that's probably the biggest conundrum for Jones: having to follow up the phenomenal success of an album that was never designed to be so hugely popular in the first place. Come Away with Me was a little album by an unknown pianist/vocalist who attempted to mix jazz, country, and folk in an acoustic setting – who knew?

It may be far too obvious to even mention that Norah Jones' follow-up to her 18-million-unit-selling, eight-Grammy-winning, genre-bending, super-smash album Come Away with Me has perhaps a bit too much to live up to. But that's probably the biggest conundrum for Jones: having to follow up the phenomenal success of an album that was never designed to be so hugely popular in the first place. Come Away with Me was a little album by an unknown pianist/vocalist who attempted to mix jazz, country, and folk in an acoustic setting – who knew? Feels Like Home could be seen as "Come Away with Me Again" if not for that fact that it's actually better. Smartly following the template forged by Jones and producer Arif Mardin, there is the intimate single "Sunrise," some reworked cover tunes, some interesting originals, and one ostensible jazz standard.

Exorcizing the ghost of a failed relationship via the time-honored tradition of the breakup album, Norah Jones luxuriates in beautiful misery on Little Broken Hearts. Liberated by the separation but not quite ready to let it go, Jones achieves a curious subdued tension here, dressing unadorned confessionals in softly stylized studio noir created with the assistance of producer Danger Mouse, who collaborated with her the year before on the collective Rome.

Exorcizing the ghost of a failed relationship via the time-honored tradition of the breakup album, Norah Jones luxuriates in beautiful misery on Little Broken Hearts. Liberated by the separation but not quite ready to let it go, Jones achieves a curious subdued tension here, dressing unadorned confessionals in softly stylized studio noir created with the assistance of producer Danger Mouse, who collaborated with her the year before on the collective Rome. Seeming opposites – the classicist meets the futurist – Jones and Danger Mouse are well matched, as both artists are not as set in their ways as their individual reputations would suggest.

'Til We Meet Again, the first live album released by Norah Jones, collects highlights from the tours she gave in the wake of the 2016 release of Day Breaks. The 14 songs on 'Til We Meet Again were recorded between 2017 and 2019, taken from performances given in the United States, Italy, France, Brazil, and Argentina. To Jones' credit, the album doesn't feel like it was cobbled together from different sources. The music flows easily, with Jones taking the time to stretch and solo, playing with her vocal phrasing just enough to enliven older songs and give newer tunes a lift. There are some overt surprises, such as a closing cover of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" that was given a week after Chris Cornell's 2017 death at the same Detroit venue where the band played their last show, but this isn't an album that upends expectations. Rather, it's a testament to the enduring elegance of Norah Jones' jazz-pop while also offering proof of the depth of her songbook.

You might want to consider Norah Jones: Live at Ronnie Scott's as something of a musical palate cleanser, especially if you're prone to go for larger, arena rock like concert videos. This particular performance is absolutely minimalist from both a staging standpoint (as can probably be gleaned from the almost unavoidably repetitive screenshots accompanying this review), but also due to the fact that Jones is part of a trio…