New music

Day Breaks, Norah Jones, (Blue Note), ★★★★

There was something about Norah Jones’ 2002 breakthrough album Come Away With

Me that just felt like medicine for the soul.

With her honeyed vocals, it was a soothing, tender sound that unfortunately got a bit lost in Jones’ follow-up albums.

But with Day Breaks, Jones makes her long awaited return to the piano seat, and to the jazz sound we fell in love with 14 years ago. This time around, there are added layers of maturity, complexity, and experimentation. After all, Jones was just 23 years old when she recorded Come Away With Me. With nine new songs and three covers, Day Breaks is a jazz album that rolls seamlessly between influences of country, folk, blues, and soul. Burn opens the album with a bang, a smouldering jazz number, which seems to also pack a James Bond-theme song punch. There are more upbeat moments, like the soul number Flipside, but the real magic comes with Jones’ movingCome Away With Me-style ballads, like Carry On and Then There Was You. Collaborations with jazz greats like saxophonist Wayne Shorter and organist Dr Lonnie Smith, and an achy cover of Neil Young’s

Don’t Be Denied are the cherries on top of an exquisite album.

As long as humans have souls, jazz this good will never go out of fashion. –