2D
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/®|ie CljarloUc #o«t
Thursday, February 19. 2004
Jones goes for what she wants on second CD
Continued from page 1D
either. Jones trusts her band
mates, and two years in the
studio and on the road have
forged ensemble empathy
that belies her own sudden
stardom. There is no song on
the album titled “Feels Like
Home.” For Jones, it’s a state
of mind.
Where the mostly down-
tempo, ballad-heavy “Come
Away With Me” was a tad
too mellow, the new album
has a bit more energy, and
more varied rhythms,
whether it’s the lightly saun
tering “Sunrise” and “Long
Walk Home,” the bluegrass
jauntiness of “Creepin’ In” (a
duet with Dolly Parton) or
the bluesy plaintiveness of
“In the Morning” and “Above
Ground,” neither of which
would sound out of place on
a Bonnie Raitt album.
Make no mistake: Norah
Jones is a pop singer. That
she records for Blue Note, a
legendary jazz label, seems
to confuse people, as does the
fact that her CV includes
jazz studies at the Universi- •
ty of North Texas. No doubt
Jones loves jazz, particularly
the great jazz vocalists of the
‘40s and ‘50s, but at this
stage she shows no particu
lar ambition to go that route
either vocally or in her key
board work, which is never
showy or busy. As a pianist,
Jones is given to rolling
accents and subtle support
chords (she gets a little
funkier on the Wurlitzer
organ).
One of the few displays of
her instrumental skills is the
album’s closer, “Don’t Miss
You at All,” where Jones has
added her own ruminative
lyrics to a brooding Duke
Ellington instrumental,
“Melancholia.” Ellington
wrote memorable pop tunes,
and if you listen to his solo
recording on 1953’s “Piano
Reflections,” you’ll hear ele
gant sorrow gently articulat
ed. Jones, also working
alone, deftly taps into that
mood with a touch as light as
Ellington’s. Half original,
“Don’t Miss You at All” is as
close to a standard as one
will find on the new album.
The other covers she chose
are less familiar than those
on her first CD. Jones slows
down tragic Texas trouba
dour Tovmes Van Zandt’s
already languid “Be Here to
Love Me,” first recorded a
decade before she was bom.
Van Zandt was no stranger
to blues — he killed himself
in 1997 — but he was also
one of the finest chroniclers
of romantic vulnerability,
and when Jones wearily
begs “Just hold me and tell
me that you’ll be here to love
me today” with Garth Hud
son’s accordion dancing
lightly behind her, she taps
into universal needs. “The
Long Way Home” is a Tbm
Waits-Kathleen Brennan
song that first appeared on
‘Shakin” at AACT
Continued from page 1D
the AACT. “In this story there are eight women who are shap
ing the lives of one 12-year-old child. One of the main charac
ters is Big Momma, the biological grandmother of the girl
whose mother dies.”
Womack says the production shows the dynamics of the black
experience when it comes to black girls.
“It’s a very moving and funny play. Some of the characters
talk about different experiences in their lives,” she said. “They
speak of their pain but they turn their pain into lemonade. You
know how the saying goes if life gives you lemons you make
lemonade. The women also let the girl know that she can get
through anything..
It sheds light on the black experience without being too dark,
deep and melodramatic. It’s a cross between “A Raisin In the
Sun,” Brewster’s Place” and “Ma Dear.” It’s an all-female cast
but it’s for everybody.
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the 2002 soundtrack for “Big
Bad Love,” and Jones pretty
much follows the same lop
ing country gait of Waits’s
recording, though her ver
sion is a lot easier on the ears
as she pits the security of a
loving relationship against
the lure of the road.
It’s probably too early to
get a fix on Jones as a song
writer and lyricist, but her
only solo effort, “What Am I
to You?,” is one of the album’s
strongest tracks, a weary
demand for romantic reas
surance featuring bluesy
Hammond organ, shuffling
drums from the Band’s
Garth Hudson and Levon
Helm and twangy guitar by
Tbny Scherr. Jones’s work
with Alexander is also quite
strong: “Sunrise” rides a gal
loping bass and rolling piano
as a lover offers cool celebra
tion “when I see we made it
through another day, “ while
“Tbes” has a Nick Drake-
style unhurriedness as
Jones reflects on taking a
chance on love, or on life.
A third Jones-Alexander
collaboration, “Carnival
Tawn,” conjures hazy melan
choly that’s equal parts
Hoagy Carmichael and Kate
and Anna McGarrigle, with
shimmering harmonies and
subtle strings that quietly
mesmerize.
The album’s emotional cen
terpiece is “Humble Me.”
Built around author Kevin
Breit’s resonator guitar and
Jones’s archaic pump organ,
it’s one of the most haunting,
harrowing songs about
familial dislocation in moons
too blue to count, a spare,
slow waltz that captures the
haunted hopelessness of
fractured love and tom fam
ilies.
Like “Come Away With
Me,” “Feels Like Home”
takes time to reveal itself,
and the process will be a lit
tle slower only because the
new album lacks the instant
emotional hook of a “Don’t
Know Why.” On the other
hand, the more you listen to
“Feels Like Home,” the more
you’ll understand why
Norah Jones titled it that
way.
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