Tag: Norah Jones

Show Review: Norah Jones – Zurich, Switzerland (06/12/04)

Norah Jones
2004-06-12
Kongresshaus
Zurich, Switzerland

SETLIST:

Disc 1

Turn Me On
Nightingale
Those Sweet Words
What Am I To You
Something Is Calling You
Stay With Me [Keith Richards]
In The Morning
Carnival Town
Don’t Miss You At All
Painter Song
The Long Way Home
Don’t Know Why
Creepin’ In
Above Ground
Sunrise
I’ve Got To See You Again
Come Away With Me
What Would I Do [Ray Charles]

Encore

Seven Years
Life Is A Carnival

The Midnight Cafe’s Notes

Norah Jones’s debut album Come Away With Me was a surprise smash hit. It was a beautiful mix of jazz, soul, folk, and the blues all entwined in Norah’s stunningly beautiful vocals. Her next two albums followed suit with lush productions and a gorgeous sound. For my money, Not Too Late is one of the prettiest albums ever made.

In 2009, she released her fourth album, The Fall, and with it she changed her signature sound. She strapped on a guitar for some songs, played an electric piano for others. The beat was more danceable, the songs more pop-oriented. She’s continued this trend, more or less, for the rest of her career (so far)

I’m not against an artist chasing their muse and going in different directions, and I do like a lot of those songs, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss that early sound. Truth be told, I’ve kind of lost sight of what she’s done lately. I didn’t even know she released Visions in 2024. She does have a podcast I like, where she plays along with various artists she likes and has lovely chats.

I’ve seen her in concert a couple of times. Both shows were wonderful, but definitely well into her more “pop” phase. This show was recorded just a few months after the release of her second album, Feels Like Home.

This is with the Handsome Band, and they sound really good. I can already feel some strains of her longing to branch out from the gorgeous piano jazz she’s locked herself into for the time being. On several songs, the band stretches out just a little bit, doing little jams before returning to the song. There are some nice guitar solos and big drums, but it still maintains that beautiful sound.

It begins with a lovely “Turn Me On.” It isn’t quite as gorgeous as the studio cut, but it’s still spellbinding. From the first notes, you can tell this is a band really gelling. They are locked in, totally in sync.

“Nightingale” and “Those Sweet Words” continue the magic. That later gives us a lovely little jam.

Norah tries a little German but mucks it up. She’s quite chatty throughout the proceedings but doesn’t seem to get much response from the crowd. I may be wrong in that, as this is an FM source and maybe the mics just didn’t pick up much crowd noise. But her responses to them do seem to indicate they aren’t very responsive. Admittedly, her chatter is pretty awkward, something she admits at one point, noting she’s a musician, not a conversationalist. Which is charming in itself. She does seem to be having a good time.

“What Am I To You” is a rollicking little number. She’s brought out that electric piano, and the guitar is really good. It has an incredible groove and the whole band is really into it. This is pure joy to my ears.

“Carnival Town” and “Don’t Miss You At All” come back to sounding like the albums. Norah calls this the piano bar section of the show. “Painter Song” has this wonderful Spanish-sounding guitar.

They then move into what Norah jokingly calls her “cowboy songs.” “Creepin’ In ” is one of my favorite Norah songs, and she plays it with gusto, and it is so much fun. “Sunrise” is terrific. “Come Away With” is so sultry it makes my knees weak.

She does a lot of cover songs throughout, from Ray Charles to The Band to Tom Waits’ “The Long Way Home.” They are lovingly played. I especially like the Waits cover, and how she replaces his gruff vocals with her beautiful ones, yet still maintains the song’s integrity. She’ll close the show out with The Band’s “Life is a Carnival,” which she calls “About as rock and roll as we get.”

This show has been bootlegged a few times. This is the source that I have.

Source: Swiss analog FM broadcast (SR DRS 3)
Equipment: Technics Tuner ST Z55L
Transfer: Creative Sound Blaster Extigy > Exact Audio Copy > Trader’s Little Helper
Generation: WAV (16bit/44.1kHz) > FLAC (Level 8)

Some notes:

– Live broadcast, complete
– Normalized

Bootleg Country: Norah Jones – San Francisco, CA (12/02/02)

Originally posted on July 8, 2006.

The difference between listening to a studio album and attending a live concert can be enormous. While listening to an album you can control the setting – turn the lights down low for a sensual beat; or turn them completely off while wrapping the headphones around your head to feel every moment of the music pulsing through your neurons and tendons, or wire speakers through your whole house to blast the neighborhood pretty much away for a block party.

You can be as distracted by other things as you want, or completely absorbed in the music. You can play the same track over and over, memorizing every moment until your ears bleed.

But live you only control the immediate environment around you, and sometimes not even that. The band or the venue sets up the speakers, mixes the instruments, and controls the overall sound. An outdoor amphitheater creates a completely different vibe than a small, indoor club, or a giant stadium. Crowds can be utterly hushed, plugged into the vibe of the band, or they can be wild crazy beasts hardly noticing that a band is on stage.

I’ve been to too many shows where the audience spent more time shouting and chatting with each other rather than actually listening to the music on stage. But when the audience is in tune, a live concert can be so much more than a studio album. There is a connection the audience can make not only with the musicians but with each other.

There are moments during those concerts when every member of the audience is singing along, washed away in a spiritual convalescence, a musical wave that sweeps us all away into bliss – those moments are perfect, without flaw.

Listening to a recording of a concert can obtain the best and worst of both worlds. You can choose the setting in which to listen, and if the recording is right, be swept away into that blissful moment. OR, you can hear all the flaws in the instrumentation and be utterly distracted by crowd noise.

Norah Jones
12/02/02
San Francisco, California

Norah Jones has a voice so sultry she could turn an albino chicken on. I remember when she first hit it big and everyone was telling me how sexy she was. I wasn’t much for radio in those days (and I’m still not) and it was during a cheap stretch when I wasn’t buying much music, so I didn’t hear her voice until well into her major stardom. My wife eventually bought Come Away With Me and I eventually gave it a listen.

My lord, they were right…

When I first heard that voice I stopped dead in my tracks and melted into a bed of puddin’. Chocolate puddin’, the best kind. I laid down, turned off the lights, and drifted off into an ecstasy filled …well let’s just say never leave me alone with Norah Jones and a bed full of puddin’.

On this particular night, Norah seems to be in good form. Her voice has retained that sultry siren feel. The backup band plays it nice and smooth. Still, there is something missing, While I enjoy the music, I’m not taken away by the soft lighting.

Part of this is the recording. This is an audience recording and though it sounds quite crisp for an audience mike (the instruments come in clear and crisp, the audience isn’t audible except in the appropriate places) there is something distant and cold in the recording.

Where on her studio albums, Norah feels like she’s sitting next to you on the couch, here she sounds like she’s playing at the bar next door. It really removes me from the recording and makes the bootleg something I enjoy having in my collection, and something I periodically take out to impress my wife, but not really something I search out to find that special secret feeling again.

It’s not just the audience recording that removes me, but also the performance. Again Norah sounds in fine form and there isn’t anything tangible that I can complain about in the band, it’s just that it feels a little…well, clinky.

To go back to the studio again, Norah’s albums have that soft, lush feel to them. The production brings out the music like crushed roses. It makes my knees quiver. It is extremely intimate. This live recording just doesn’t have that. In the live setting, on CD, that intimacy is lost. I’m sure for those who were there in Davies Hall it was all intimate and beautiful, but that’s the thing with bootleg recordings, the experience of listening to it is often much different than actually being there.

On some songs, she is able to create an intimate, lush space for which to listen. On “Something Is Calling You” I feel Norah sneak up on me and lay my head on her shoulder as she coos me to sleep. But then again on the opening song, “Turn Me On” she fails too, something I would never expect from Norah.

While listening I found myself continuously wishing I had the studio counterparts instead. It’s either that or having Norah live in the flesh singing to me whilst I sleep in a bed of puddin’. Chocolate puddin’, the best kind.