Norah Jones
"Day Breaks"
(Blue Note (ASTERISK)(ASTERISK)(ASTERISK){)
The line on Norah Jones' sixth album and first since 2012's Danger Mouse-produced "Little Broken Hearts" is that it's a return to the jazzy, piano-based sound of her 2002 Grammy-gobbling, gazillion-selling debut, "Come Away With Me." True enough, as far as it goes. But whereas that album was full of late-night confidences and the comforting, honeyed vocals that are a Jones trademark, it was really a pop album with jazz trappings.
"Day Breaks," by contrast, is more thoroughly a jazz record, down to its Horace Silver ("Peace") and Duke Ellington ("Fleurette Africaine") covers and guest appearances by Lonnie Smith and Wayne Shorter. Which is not to say "Day Breaks" is by any means inaccessible to pop ears: Jones' inviting purr is as pleasurable an instrument as ever, and she does well with her own revved-up and swinging "Flipside," subtly sophisticated ballads such as the title cut, and the churchy lead single "Carry On," as well as a particularly rich version of the not-overplayed Neil Young classic "Don't Be Denied." But what really distinguishes "Day Breaks" is that, after years of agreeable drifting _ from projects with country cover band the Little Willies to 2013's Everly Brothers tribute with Billie Joe Armstrong _ it finds Jones back on the piano bench, putting a decade and a half's worth of lessons learned into the music that meant the most to her in the first place.
_Dan DeLuca
