Featuring…Norah Jones is a mixed bag. The CD is a compilation of duets Norah Jones did with several artists from 2001 to 2010. Norah sings with Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Herbie Hancock, Foo Fighters, Ryan Adams, Belle and Sebastian, OutKast, Q-Tip, and Talib Kweli just to name a few of her collaborators. Some songs work, others don’t. Willie Nelson sounds totally disinterested in singing with Norah on “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” However, I enjoyed Norah’s work on “Ruler Of My Heart” with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a group I’d never heard of. Flawed as Featuring…Norah Jones is, it is vastly superior to Norah Jone’s last CD, The Fall which I find unlistenable. GRADE: B
SET LIST
1. Love Me – The Little Willies
2. Virginia Moon – Foo Fighters featuring Norah Jones
3. Turn Them – Sean Bones featuring Norah Jones
4. Baby It’s Cold Outside – Willie Nelson featuring Norah Jones
5. Bull Rider – Norah Jones and Sasha Dobson
6. Ruler Of My Heart – Dirty Dozen Brass Band featuring Norah Jones
7. The Best Part – El Madmo
8. Take Off Your Cool – Outkast featuring Norah Jones
9. Life Is Better – Q-Tip featuring Norah Jones
10. Soon The New Day – Talib Kweli featuring Norah Jones
11. Little Lou, Prophet Jack, Ugly John – Belle & Sebastian featuring Norah Jones
12. Here We Go Again – Ray Charles featuring Norah Jones
13. Loretta – Norah Jones featuring Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
14. Dear John – Ryan Adams featuring Norah Jones
15. Creepin’ In – Norah Jones featuring Dolly Parton
16. Court & Spark – Herbie Hancock featuring Norah Jones
17. More Than This – Charlie Hunter featuring Norah Jones
18. Blue Bayou – Norah Jones featuring M. Ward
I’m not sure about this one. I thought her first two albums were very good, but the quality since then has been uneven–and I didn’t even buy the last one (whereby, apparently, I didn’t miss much). Is “More Than This” the old Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music song? I love that one–but I think Ferry’s version is definitive. And I assume “Court and Spark” is Joni Mitchell’s song from the 1970s.
Yes, “Court and Spark” is a jazzy version of the Joni Mitchell classic, Deb. I didn’t much like this Herbie Hancock/Norah Jones version. About half the songs on this CD are good, the rest…not so much.
She really lost more than a boyfriend when she lost the guy who wrote hers songs for the first two.
Norah Jones’ last album, THE FALL, was a radical departure in her style, Patti. I didn’t like it and many of her fans didn’t either. This compilation CD is a hodgepodge of songs: some good, some not so good.
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is a great New Orleans group.
I have to listen to FEATURING…NORAH JONES a few more times, but right now I think “Ruler of My Heart” with Norah and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band is my favorite song on this CD.
More the fool Willie Nelson, to phone in on “Baby” with her, unless they really just don’t care for each other.
I prefer her jazzier work, and might well like this one.
Of the 18 songs on this CD, I like about nine of them, Todd. You might like the jazzy cuts, but will you like the rap songs…
If they’re any good, I might…I’m the one respondent to your Jay-Z post who didn’t like his work because it isn’t very good rap (by me), for the most part. Marshall Mathers doesn’t do much for me, but I’ll go as pop as “Jump Around” and can admire innovation in work, such as Boogie Down Productions’, even when I don’t endorse the message in whole or, in their case, in part. If it’s weak/bland rap, I probably won’t like it. Even some of her jazz-pop can be a trifle dull. I guess I shouldn’t put that on my dating-site profile while wooing her…
I loved Norah Jone’s first two CDs, Todd. But the results have been mixed since then.