And music is in her blood, quite literally: Though she's loath to discuss the subject, Norah's father is sitarist Ravi Shankar, whom she met only four years ago, and her half-sister is Anoushka Shankar, a classically trained pianist who's becoming a superstar in her own right. Ravi Shankar spoke in August to the London Sunday Telegraphabout Norah, referring to her as a "very good jazz singer"; he also apologized for having been a neglectful father, a sin for which he hopes to atone. Of the Shankars, Norah will only say "they didn't have a lot to do in my life growing up." The job of raising her was left to her mother, who now lives with friends in Atlanta after spending a year in Africa as part of the Doctors Without Borders program.
"My mother knew I was kinda doing music and that I would probably end up being a musician," Norah says. "She just thought it would be better if I went to Arts Magnet. She didn't like Grapevine either. I'm not bashing Grapevine, but she just read about the school and thought it was really cool, and I am glad she made me audition, so I went from 10th grade on. And once I got to high school, I was so involved in it that it was like, 'Oh, I guess this is what I do.'"
Cheung Ching Ming
Jazz Jones: The Arts Magnet graduate will release her Blue Note debut next year.
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While at Arts Magnet, Jones received three awards from Down Beatmagazine: In 1996, she was cited for her playing and for her songwriting; a year later, she was again recognized as one of the best high school performers in the country. She would eventually enroll at North Texas to study jazz piano, where she cut a 12-song demo of jazz standards. She also took a few gigs around town, the best of which proved to be a year-and-a-half-long stint at Popolos, an Italian restaurant at the corner of Preston and Royal. She played every Friday and Saturday night, and it was there she practiced singing and playing at the same time--something she knew she needed to do if she was going to keep getting gigs.
"I really enjoyed it and thought I would make more money doing that," she says, laughing. "That's not why I do it, but I realized I never practiced enough to be the best piano player, but I really loved to play. I just thought singing and playing together would be best for me."
Two years ago, between semesters at North Texas, she went to New York City, hoping to get the odd gig before moving back to Denton to complete her studies. She wound up falling in with a group of singer-songwriters, including Jesse Harris, whom she'd met in Texas, and started taking her demo around to local club and restaurant owners. She got her first job working at an Italian restaurant, playing Saturdays and Sundays from 3 to 7 p.m.--"the weirdest time in the world to have piano music," Jones says. Soon, she was playing the Living Room on the Lower East Side, a homey restaurant-cum-performance space where singer-songwriters, among them Jill Sobule and Richard Barone, try out new material. About then, she decided to stay in New York, despite her mother's insistence she return home and finish school. "It was pretty weird," Jones says. "My mom was pretty mad."
One night, a woman named Shell White, who worked in Blue Note's royalties department, heard Jones play and was so enamored of the young unknown she called Lundvall and told him she had someone he needed to listen to. He told her, Fine, come by the office Friday and play me what you got. White, who is now Jones' manager, brought the singer and her three-song demo, but Lundvall made it through only two songs. "I was staggered," he says. He left the women in his office, walked down to see Blue Note's head of A&R, Bruce Baccus, and told him the label was going to sign Jones. They heard her play at the Knitting Factory, gave her a demo deal (which resulted in First Sessions, available now only at www.norahjones.com and at shows), then signed her to a six-album deal in January of this year.
Initially, her ability to transcend boundaries worried Blue Note, once home to Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Clifford Brown. The label has its share of artists who fit no easy classification--Medeski Martin & Wood, for instance, or Charlie Hunter, whose forthcoming album Songs from the Analog Playgroundfeatures Jones covering Roxy Music and Nick Drake--but Lundvall fretted Jones' resistance to being pigeonholed. He even considered taking her over to the pop-minded Capitol Records, which distributes Blue Note. He says she told him she wanted to be a jazz artist foremost, and the two finally struck a deal.
Besides, Lundvall says, "When Cassandra Wilson did her first record for us, it's hardly pure jazz. Same with Dianne Reeves or Holly Cole, who's a cross between pop and cabaret and jazz. What's the point of categories anymore? They all fall. This makes sense, because this is Norah's vision. It incorporates her Texas roots, her jazz roots and pop sensibilities. She reminds me of Nat Cole when he had a trio. It's a dumb thing to say, but who asked if he was a jazz artist or pop artist?"
