There can’t be many music fans who haven’t heard or at least heard of this now very famous daughter of a famous father but in an age where ‘celebrity’ is the thing, and as the media gear up in anticipation of the release of her third Blue Note album in January, Norah Jones’ public persona remains firmly entwined with her music, leading to much debate about her career and impact on the contemporary music scene.

Born in 1979 in New York, to Ravi Shankar and Sue Jones, Norah was brought up by her mother, moving to Texas when she was four. Unsurprisingly, she was exposed to all kinds of music from early childhood and was apparently much taken with the music of Billie Holiday and Bill Evans but it wasn’t until Norah attending Dallas' Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts that she began to explore jazz in a serious way. Still at school, Jones won the Down Beat Student Music Awards for Best Jazz Vocalist and Best Original Composition in 1996, and another Best Jazz Vocalist award in 1997.

Responding to such recognition, Jones began a degree course in jazz piano at the University of North Texas. In her second year a friend's offer of a summer vacation sublet in Greenwich Village lured yet another aspiring jazz musician to the myriad coffee houses and jazz clubs that made up the dazzling New York jazz scene and it wasn’t long before Jones was writing and playing on a regular basis. It was at this time that she teamed up with long-term collaborators guitarist Jesse Harris, bassist Lee Alexander with and drummer Dan Rieser.

After a couple of years playing together the group recorded a handful of demos in October 2000 and sent them to Blue Note Records. On the strength of these recordings Jones signed to the label in early 2001 and spent much of the rest of the year working on material for her debut album. Come Away with Me, produced by the highly influential Arif Mardin, was released in early 2002 to spectacular results, selling 18 million copies. Although by no means a jazz album, Jones’ jazz leanings were evident throughout, reinforced by jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and session drummer Brian Blade. Most significantly, the album signalled a willingness by Blue Note to engage with the widening popularity of jazz-based music amongst mainstream audiences, in this case by combining jazz aesthetics with a pop sensibility.

Jones’ second album, Feels Like Home, was released in 2004 and reprised her original success, with global sales topping 10 million. She again teamed up with producer Mardin and followed the style of the first album, mixing '70s singer/songwriter tracks with blues, country and her own mellow piano jazz style. But although a winning formula appeared to have been established Jones’ innate musical eclecticism led her to explore other genres. Before her record deal she had played with trip-hop electronica band Wax Poetic and in between her first and second album she applied her own take to country and western, playing covers of classic songs by the likes of Hank Williams and Willie Nelson with a group of friends who eventually formed a band called the Little Willies.

So does such musical wandering preclude Norah Jones from consideration as a jazz musician? Well, no. In the Golden Era jazz was the mainstream popular music, ranging from novelty songs to dance hall big band ballistics and swing, West Coast cool to experimental small groups, and encompassing the great American songbook along the way. The jazz criteria then, as now, was based on musicianship and interpretation rather than rigid categorisation. The likes of Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Oliver Nelson, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald brought a jazz sensibility to pop without detracting from their jazz credentials. Norah Jones, with an ingrained jazz-based musical instinct has brought a similar sensibility to a different era, where jazz is on the periphery of a popular musical culture riddled with jazz influences in which artists routinely cross genres in order to reach new audiences. Not yet 28, Jones’has always acknowledged her jazz-informed beginnings and within the contemporary musical ethos there is no indication that this will diminish as her career progresses, as may again be demonstrated on her latest studio album.

The creation of Not Too Late was a very different affair from her previous two Blue Note albums. For the first time all of the 13 tracks were written or co-written by Jones and partner and bassist Lee Alexander, who also produced the album following the death of Arif Mardin earlier this year. Another difference was that this album had a far greater gestation period. One of the benefits of star status is that the recording process is often more geared to the artist’s working style. Although Jones had always had artistic freedom, Mardin favoured tight production schedules and the first two recordings had been completed in a matter of weeks. With Not Too Late Jones and the band had been working in the studio for eight months when they realised that they had pretty much recorded an album’s worth of tracks that all fitted together before they took it to the label. "I think (the album) reflects more sides of my personality than my first two records did,” she said in a phone interview with The Associated Press recently. “It has different sides to it, a lot more variety to it,” adding that her new songs are a bit more intimate, with a bit of humor, but still retain the laid-back feel of her previous records. "It has more of a playfulness to it," she said. "There's different elements we haven't used in the past, like horns." Just how different will be revealed on 30th January.

None available at present.

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