Not Too Late

by

Norah Jones

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While the first two albums were dominated by covers, "Not Too Late" is all solo or co-written original material.

It's not startling, as these songs continue her pop-meets-country with a dash of smoky cabaret style. Nor is it exactly revelatory. Firstly her life, apart from the fame, has been remarkably normal and uneventful and lyrically the new material is mostly observational. ("I have a wonderful boyfriend. So how am I going to write a tortured break-up song? My life is really good and I don't want to ruin it just for a good song.").

Still, there are a few pointed lines about misplaced love and even some mild political commentary in "My Dear Country".

The album has its share of strong tracks, like the Dylanesque "Wish I Could", with its unexpected half-note elisions, or the trad-jazzy Tom Waits-like "Sinkin' Soon", or the haunting, whimsical, cello-darkened "Broken".

The mood is mostly dreamy, lazy country-rockers, quirky waltzes, a little earthy bluesiness and bits of laid-back funk, and there's even a demurely delivered anti-Bush song.

Jones's voice, always more characterful than the easy-listening tag ever implied, sometimes shifts to a strange place between Madeleine Peyroux's or Diane Krall's jazzy smokiness and the sultry, jazz/soul balladry a la Billie Holiday..

But Norah's and partner Lee Alexander's tunes need to improve if the singer isn't to retreat to covering classics again, as she almost certainly will. It's pretty music (though the sugary " Little Room" gets to tooth-twinge point), beautifully performed.

But Norah Jones has more to offer than this, and the needs of the EMI boardroom probably won't help her find it.

One interesting thing about Amazon reviews is that readers really don't like negative ones; just look at the feedback votes for the pans on this page. I think that's because people come to an Amazon page wanting to buy the item, wanting to like it, and the negative reviews are not really what we want to see, not when we've got credit card in-hand.

With the new Norah Jones record, Not Too Late, you've also got the burden of expectation; in a short time she's become a major, Grammy-winning star. You couldn't escape Come Away With Me the summer it was out; it seemed like every time I went to someone's house, they simply HAD to play me this new, great record that it was impossible not to like.

And that's the thing about Not Too Late. It is not impossible to dislike this record. Come Away From Me was lightning in a bottle; it sold 18 million copies yet it was a small record. It was that rarest of albums--a hit on merit, not record company push (heck, it was on Blue Note). It oozed simple earnest charm.

But you can't make your first record more than once, and you probably can't make another universally acclaimed 18-million seller either. Not Too Late is a more challenging work. Of course it boasts the natural gifts of Jones and crew (notably boyfriend/collaborator Lee Alexander.) But it is a genre-hopping, at times almost experimental work, nowhere as consistent, uniform, or in the pocket as her earlier records. If you have expectations based on previous records (not unreasonable), then this will almost undoubtedly not live up to them.

But that means she is painting with a broader palate, and sometimes that takes getting used to; it is indeed possible that with a few years time, Not Too Late will look like Norah's creative breakthrough, maybe something like Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom. When I first heard Come Away With Me, my immediate reaction was to go and listen to my Rickie Lee Jones records again, because I thought that, as likable as it was, it was derivative. But what you hear on Not Too Late is an artist finding her own voice.

If you are a fan, then of course you ought to pick this up (and in my opinion, the price is right.) If you are just coming to Norah's work, then (a) where have you been; and (b) you really should start with Come Away With me. There are moments of sublime beauty here ("Not My Friend"), and I have a feeling this album will sound very different after I've let it "breathe" a few months. It does not scale the heights of her first two main records on the "I Instantly Love This and So Will You"-o-meter. Where it falls out in time, we'll just have to wait and see. But I do think that whatever she does from here, this record points the way.