Cullum has attracted attention for more than just his recorded music: his live performances indicate a young man with over-the-top showmanship. He does more than just play the piano: he bangs on it with his fists, pounds the keys, and occasionally kicks the keys for additional emphasis. I just let myself go at the expense of looking like an idiot all the time and getting really hot and sweaty and not being very classy.
During her high school years at Dallas's Booker T. Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Jones explored her developing passion for jazz. On her sixteenth birthday she gave her first solo performance, singing and playing piano at a coffeehouse on open-mic night, when anyone brave enough can try his or her hand at performing for the public.
During that period Jones also played in a band called Laszlo and tried her hand at composing jazz tunes. After graduating from high school Jones enrolled at the University of North Texas.
She spent two years there, studying jazz piano and giving solo performances at a local restaurant on weekends. She also became reacquainted with her father, and the two developed a close relationship.
The summer after her sophomore year Jones decided to head to New York City and try her luck making it as a musician there. Working in a restaurant during the day and performing in downtown clubs by night, Jones felt excited to be part of the city's jazz scene, rather than just studying music in a classroom.
She decided to stay in New York, forming a jazz trio, and also performing with other jazz groups, including the Peter Malick Group.
While her professional life revolved mainly around jazz, she began listening often to country music. I was homesick, so I listened to [renowned country singer-songwriter] Townes Van Zandt. On the evening of her twenty-first birthday, Jones gave a performance that connected deeply with a notable member of her audience. Shell White, an employee in the accounting department of the revered jazz label Blue Note, was so struck by Jones's talents that she arranged for a meeting between the young singer and the label's chief executive officer CEO , Bruce Lundvall.
After meeting Jones and hearing her sing, Lundvall signed her to a record deal on the spot. Lundvall explained to Time magazine's Josh Tyrangiel that such impulsive decisions had been made only twice in his career at Blue Note the other artist was jazz vocalist Rachelle Ferrell. Lundvall described the essence of Jones's appeal: "Norah doesn't have one of those over-the-top instruments.
It's just a signature voice, right from the heart to you. When you're lucky enough to hear that, you don't hesitate. You sign it. Jones began her relationship with Blue Note by releasing a six-song EP, a less-than-full-length recording, called First Sessions. For her debut full-length recording, Blue Note paired Jones with veteran producer Arif Mardin, who had worked with such legendary performers as Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield. When she and Mardin began recording Come Away with Me in May of , Jones showed a preference for a spontaneous style in the studio, aiming to capture the intimate and natural qualities of live performance.
She recorded fourteen songs for her debut; Jones wrote a few of the tracks but left most of the composing duties to others, including her boyfriend, bassist Lee Alexander, and New York—based songwriter-guitarist Jesse Harris.
She also recorded two songs made famous by musicians legendary in their respective fields: country king Hank Williams "Cold, Cold Heart" and revered jazz-pop composer Hoagy Carmichael "The Nearness of You". Released in early , Come Away with Me earned positive reviews. Music critics expressed appreciation for her distinctive voice and authentic, understated style.
Many critics wrote of Jones as a promising new artist, a refreshing change of pace from the slick packaging of pop stars like Britney Spears. Even the most admiring reviewers, however, did not predict that the album would gradually become a smash hit and that Jones would become Blue Note's best-selling artist ever.
Come Away with Me became so successful that it seemed to be everywhere: on the radio, on television, playing over the public address system in shopping malls. Jones recalled to Tyrangiel that she heard one of the album's tracks in an unexpected place: "Once on a plane—you know how they play elevator music before you take off?
Some even started calling her "Snorah Jones," a nickname Jones found amusing rather than hurtful. She confided to Tyrangiel, "My mom calls me Snorah all the time now. The "insanity," as Jones frequently characterized the buzz surrounding her debut, seemed to reach a peak when the album was nominated for eight Grammy Awards.
The album won all eight awards for which it was nominated, with Jones receiving five awards and the three others going to producer Mardin, the album's engineers, and songwriter Jesse Harris for "Don't Know Why. As the ceremony progressed, Jones began to feel overwhelmed, as she related in Texas Monthly: "I felt like I was in high school and all the popular kids were in the audience and were, like, 'What's she doing up there?
But for the most part Jones retreated from the spotlight. She preferred the idea of being a member of a group rather than a solo star, telling Billboard 's Melinda Newman, "Deep down, in my gut, all I want to be is part of a band.
Has an older half-brother named Shubhendra Shankar, who is 37 years her senior. Half sister-in-law of British filmmaker Joe Wright. In February , she gave birth to a son. Child's father is her husband. In July , she gave birth to her second child. Appeared at the 50th anniversary of the Monterey Pop Festival in Of course, her father performed at the original incarnation of the festival in I don't always know where to put my hands; sometimes it is endearing, sometimes not.
I have a bigger apartment--that's the main change. I'm not melancholy; I'm a happy-go-lucky person, kind of silly. I like funny things. I have a lot of energy.
I tend to like music that's mellow, though. Without a piano I don't know how to stand, don't know what to do with my hands. That's been the coolest thing about all this - I get to meet people that I worship! I don't try to sound like anyone but me anymore. If something is out of my element, I try to avoid it. It didn't seem like I would be the most obvious person for him to ask, but for some reason he did, and for some reason I dove in head first before I knew anything about the project. I watched several of his films and thought they were beautiful, so I just trusted him.
Recently I've started to drive again. Living in New York City you don't really need a car, and I had let my license lapse. I've really found it liberating to drive again. I don't think it is good for me to drive too much in New York City, though, because I am prone to road rage. Plus I drive like a granny and everyone in New York drives with impatience. With the first record I was very overwhelmed - a scared little chicken because I felt like people were staring at me and I didn't have any clothes on or something.
Now, people aren't really staring at me, so I'm able to be more comfortable with myself. But Burton likes to start with a blank slate. All a Dream was one of the first songs they made together: a noir meditation on the lingering effects of a bad love affair. They worked on the fly, prompting Jones to embrace roughness, using recordings that she had intended as scratch demos. It was a transformative experience. I went in having faith in the process and the lightning bolt of inspiration that comes with making music.
I learned a lot of that from working with Brian. It was written as the US lurched towards Trumpism. On her seventh record, Jones applied the lessons she learned from Danger Mouse with such commitment that it is hard to call Begin Again an album. She released them one by one and compiled them later. The title track, written with Emily Fiskio and produced by Jones, was a true bolt from the blue. I think as we get older, that comes in and out more and more: we think about our humanity and happiness and our family and our loved ones.
It really freed me up and made me more inspired than ever. For her eighth album, Jones took some inspiration from an unlikely source. That, plus the encouragement of a poet friend, led Jones to start writing her own poetry, which she turned into three of the songs on her new record. The ad hoc assembly reminded her of a photograph her husband took of her on the ground, so she called the record Pick Me Up Off the Floor.
It has a heavy mood, dramatic vocals, songs about division and irreconcilable differences.
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