Singer's blend of styles defies pigeon-holing

She's young, gifted and a jazz singer who loves country music. GRAHAM REID talks with Norah Jones.

Somebody up there obviously likes Norah Jones and blessed her with extraordinary good looks. Those are her cheekbones and ruby lips which have been replicated in their thousands and grace the cover of her album Come Away with Me.

And just in case her looks alone weren't enough to draw attention to this 22-year-old singer/pianist, that somebody up there also blessed her with musical talent.

It's one of those appealingly elusive talents, however. She's on a jazz label but loves the country music of Texas where she grew up, is touring in the States playing rock venues as she and her band open for singer-songwriter John Mayer, and has sung on the most recent avant-jazz album of the guitarist Charlie Hunter.

And one of the standout tracks on her first album for Blue Note is a treatment of the Hank Williams country classic Cold Cold Heart, which sits neatly alongside originals by her and bassist/boyfriend Lee Alexander, and Hoagy Carmichael's jazz standard The Nearness of You.

Whatever it is that Jones does - and purists would be loath to describe it as "jazz" - it is very popular. Her album sat at No 12 on the New Zealand charts last week. In this month's Real Groove rock magazine it is hailed in two separate columns, one of them concerned with jazz and what record companies call heritage (i.e. older) artists. The other was a glowing report from a country music writer of her appearance at the South by SouthWest music festival in Austin, Texas, last month.

And in the US where Jones has picked up equally favourable comment in the New York Post, Rolling Stone (as one of 10 new artists to watch), LA Times and Washington Post, her album has surpassed her sales expectations.

"I thought if we sold 10,000 copies total then I could do another. I thought Blue Note would probably let me make another if we sold that many. I think we've sold over 70,000 so far."

It's late afternoon in Los Angeles and Jones is having a rare day off. She, guitarist Jesse Harris and Alexander are lounging in her hotel room. They've been on the road since January 3, first on a short headlining tour playing small singer-songwriter venues and now opening for Mayer in larger halls for a predominantly rock audience. They've also fitted in appearances on the Jay Leno Show and, the highlight of her career so far, she opened for Willie Nelson for four nights at the grizzled old outlaw's suggestion.

"That was the coolest thing, I just love him so much."

It's probably comments like that which confuse those who would try to pin Jones as simply "jazz musician". After all she is on Blue Note, one the longest-running and most creditable of jazz labels, and she has certainly paid her dues playing standards in restaurants and nightclubs of her adopted home, New York.

But while you can take the girl out of Texas, it also appears you can't take her far from the soundtrack of the Lone Star state.

"And my mom is from Oklahoma and when she and I would visit my grandma there she'd always have Willie Nelson playing. But I never thought I was into country music at all until I moved back to New York a couple of years ago. It was only then I realised just how much of that I had in me."

Music is in Jones' blood. Her father is the legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar - absent all her life and about whom Jones prefers not to talk. She met him only four years ago.

Born in New York, she was raised by her mother Sue, a nurse with an urge to travel. The two lived in various states before settling in Dallas where the young Norah played sax in a marching team, learned piano and sang in school and church choirs. Obviously gifted, she won three awards in high school from Down Beat jazz magazine in the mid to late-90s for songwriting and piano performance.

She listened to her mum's Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin albums, played regular gigs in coffee bars, restaurants and hotels, then headed for New York City a little over two years ago.

"I had my little 12-song demo of me and a bass player doing jazz standards. A friend made 30 copies on his computer in New York and I just went around jazz clubs and restaurants and tried to get gigs.

"I didn't get called back by some people and others I had to be persistent with and finally got a gig. I did solo gigs and then duo things, and finally trio things which meant I met a lot of musicians who in turn started calling me for gigs as a hired singer.

"By the end of the summer I was playing two and three nights a week, and by the end of that year playing sometimes six nights a week in restaurant-bar situations. There weren't a lot of listening rooms. The first time I played for an audience that was actually listening, and wasn't a high school recital, was at the Living Room which is a singer-songwriter club. I realised it was more fun playing to people who listen, although playing restaurants and bars is where you learn."

Jones could have been learning in those Big Apple bars and restaurants for years, however, if that someone up there hadn't liked her.

One night a woman who worked at Blue Note heard Jones play and was so impressed she called the label's influential boss, Bruce Lundvall, and told him about her. Jones was invited in to play some of her demo material, Lundvall was duly impressed, went to see her play live at the Knitting Factory, then offered her a deal to record some more material.

"They give you some money to make a demo but you have to sign a contract. If they like the demo they'll sign you to a proper contract but if they don't then you don't have to pay the money back.

"I was so nervous because I'd just barely started writing songs and here was this jazz label wanting me to make recordings. All I'd done before was jazz but I was at a crossroads and didn't know whether I should do standards or the new stuff, so I did a compromise. And the stuff that came out best were the originals and not the standards.

"Jazz standards are some of the greatest songs, but right now there's no reason for me to sing them because plenty of people do them, and older people who've recorded them. So it's okay for me not to do that."

Her demo, which included country-styled ballads alongside the more breathy jazz material, initially confused Lundvall.

"There was a Horace Silver [jazz] song and some originals, and Lonestar which is sort of a country song. Bruce said he liked it but, 'It isn't really jazz. Are you sure you want to be on Blue Note? Maybe you should do something more jazzy.' But then it grew on him and a month later he said, 'Norah, I love Lonestar, it's as country as can be but we like the direction you are going in so don't worry about us putting a jazz thing over you. We don't want you to do standards.' I was so relieved."

The label had previously also had considerable success with artists such as Cassandra Wilson and Dianne Reeves, whose music similarly defies convenient pigeonholing. When Lundvall decided to run with Jones he called in six-times Grammy-winning producer Arif Mardin, who had worked on albums with Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler, Willie Nelson, Barbra Streisand and the Bee Gees.

"I didn't know his name very well but had heard it. Then when I looked it up I realised I had half of the great records he did. He'd just come over to Blue Note and this was his first project. I was nervous but adamant about the minimal production and using mostly my own musicians and also my own engineer, and he let me do all that.

"The Hank Williams song Cold Cold Heart was his least favourite but I said we were going to record it anyway. I probably wouldn't have recorded it had I realised so many people would comment on it. I'm not trying to make a statement, I just like the song and the way we do it. I hope Hank isn't turning over in his grave."

That's hardly likely as Jones and her small band strip the song back to its melodic essence and present it as a warm cocktail bar ballad. It also makes a delightful and thematic companion piece to Alexander's Lonestar.

And it is these elements as much as Jones' easy delivery and the quiet mood of the album that has garnered attention for this precocious talent. It also helps that Come Away With Me isn't too readily slotted into "jazz", a category which can be off-putting for many and therefore a ghetto for great talents.

"Part of the reason I signed with Blue Note was because I knew they weren't going to turn me into some pop thing, and that's the concern with big labels. I'm not trying to sell zillions of records, I just want to keep making them and knew if I sold a small amount they'd keep me on. And I was excited by the fact they didn't put pressure on me.

"I know there are people who are very straight-ahead jazz snobs who don't listen to anything else. But the fact is times have changed. I come from a very strong jazz background and for about six years that was all I listened to, but right now this is the evolution I've taken with it. And I just happen to be on a jazz label."

* Come Away With Me is out now.