Norah Jones

A quarter-century ago, Come Away With Me—the debut album from Norah Jones, a 22-year-old jazz singer raised in Texas and Alaska but based then in New York—became such a global phenomenon that the British press coined the term “The Norah Jones Effect.” Come Away With Me was one of the best-selling albums of all time and earned Jones five Grammys in a single night, so labels were rushing to find soulful singers who scratched the itch Jones had exposed. But Jones’ artistic restlessness was clear from the start. She recruited Dolly Parton, Levon Helm, and Garth Hudson for her follow-up, 2004’s inviting Feels Like Home, and soon started the first of her two country bands, The Little Willies. She wrote lots of 2007’s Not Too Late on guitar and made 2012’s Little Broken Hearts with Danger Mouse, who encouraged her to scrap the songs and preconceptions she’d brought into the studio and start from the beginning. Ever since, her quietly fearless career has seemed even more like a response to that advice.

Jones returned squarely to jazz on Day Breaks in 2016, headlining Newport after confessing to The New York Times, “Sometimes I feel like a jazz dropout, you know?” But she now had Wayne Shorter, Brian Blade, and John Patitucci in tow for its adventures. She drifted through electronics and into cosmic country for 2019’s fascinating and gorgeous Begin Again, then wrestled with midlife ennui and anxiety on 2020’s Pick Me Up Off the Floor, her poems set to the sounds of a sympathetic acoustic band. But Visions, from 2024, found Jones rushing forward, singing soul above glittering synths and triumphant horns on “Swept Up in the Night” and ragged blues guitar on “Queen of the Sea.” As Blue Note president Don Was wrote of hearing Visions, “She’s singing about being awake, wanting to dance, finally feeling free, being on her way to making it right and acceptance of what life brings.”