Introducing Broken Record: "Norah Jones Begins Again"

Summary

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia Episode Summary: Introducing Broken Record: "Norah Jones Begins Again"

Introduction In the episode titled “Introducing Broken Record: 'Norah Jones Begins Again'," the host Chris Molanphy introduces listeners to the Broken Record podcast by Pushkin Industries. This episode delves into a special conversation featuring Grammy-winning artist Norah Jones and Blue Note Records President Don Was, celebrating the 85th anniversary of the iconic jazz label.

Overview of Broken Record Podcast Chris Molanphy begins by highlighting Broken Record as a must-listen for Hit Parade enthusiasts. He explains that Broken Record offers intimate and creative conversations with beloved musicians, ranging from legendary figures to emerging talents. The episode under discussion features Norah Jones discussing her musical journey, her relationship with Blue Note Records, and insights into her latest album, "Visions."

Conversation with Don Was and Norah Jones

Early Interactions and Norah's Debut Album At the outset of the conversation ([04:11] Norah Jones: “Lovely to be here. Thank you, man.”), Norah Jones expresses her excitement about celebrating Blue Note’s 85th anniversary. Don Was recounts Norah’s introduction to the label, mentioning how Sandra Bullock played a pivotal role in bringing her music to attention ([04:30] Norah Jones: “Sandra Bullock turned me on to you.”). The discussion touches on the release of Norah’s groundbreaking debut album, “Come Away With Me,” and its swift rise to fame.

Don Was's Musical Background and Influences Don Was shares his rich musical background, tracing his early influences from jazz legends like Herbie Hancock and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers ([01:35] Justin Richmond: “One of the first and longest standing institutions of jazz music...”). He reflects on his time as a jazz piano major at the University of North Texas and his experiences in various jazz scenes in New York City, including clubs like Smalls and The Living Room.

Recording Processes and Experiences The conversation delves into the intricacies of recording with Blue Note Records. Don Was discusses his initial attempts to produce Norah’s music, including the challenges faced when his first record was rejected due to mix issues ([33:37] Don Was: “We recorded 21 songs in a week and mixed it immediately. Maybe it wasn't the smartest way...” ). He narrates the pivotal moment when Blue Note’s head, Bruce Lenhoff, decided to support his artistic vision despite genre discrepancies ([35:07] Don Was: “Bruce was so great...”).

Evolution of Don Was as a Musician Don Was reflects on his personal growth as a musician, from his early days of mimicking legendary singers like Aretha Franklin and Billie Holiday to embracing his unique style ([31:27] Norah Jones: “Brilliant, man. Yeah. It’s all for real.”). He discusses the importance of authenticity in music and how his collaboration with Norah allowed him to explore and refine his artistic identity.

Collaboration and Mentorship with Norah Jones The synergy between Don Was and Norah Jones is a focal point of the discussion. They explore the creative dynamics of producing Norah’s latest album, “Visions,” emphasizing the joy and spontaneity that defined their sessions ([59:48] Don Was: “We just play and have fun, like we did in college.” ). Don praises Norah’s genuine passion for music, highlighting her commitment to artistry over commercial success ([52:24] Norah Jones: “...if you can't do it for the right reasons, you'd walk away.”).

Insights on Music Production and Artistic Integrity Throughout the conversation, the importance of maintaining artistic integrity is a recurring theme. Don Was emphasizes resisting the pressures to conform to commercial trends, as exemplified by Norah’s decision to decline a pop remix of her hit “Don’t Know Why” ([54:05] Don Was: “...I was like, that's ridiculous. That's not a musical reason.”). They discuss the balance between commercial success and staying true to one’s musical vision, advocating for authenticity and personal fulfillment in the creative process.

Anecdotes and Personal Stories The episode is rich with personal anecdotes that shed light on the collaborative relationship between Don Was and Norah Jones. From Don's humorous recollections of recording sessions, such as battling with piano harmonies ([43:09] Don Was: “It's just the nearness of you.”), to Norah’s admiration for iconic musicians like Aretha Franklin and her behind-the-scenes efforts to include strings in her performances ([42:53] Don Was: “He was a great string arranger.”), listeners gain an intimate view of their artistic journeys.

Conclusion The episode concludes with a heartfelt performance of Norah Jones’s new song “Paradise,” showcasing the seamless blend of piano and vocals that define her signature sound ([70:55] Don Was performs). The conversation wraps up with reflections on the enduring legacy of Blue Note Records and the continued evolution of Norah Jones as an artist. Chris Molanphy encourages listeners to explore more episodes of Broken Record, emphasizing the podcast's role in celebrating and dissecting musical histories and stories.

Notable Quotes:

• Norah Jones ([04:30]): “Sandra Bullock turned me on to you.”
• Don Was ([35:07]): “Bruce was so great. Bruce was so into jazz...”
• Norah Jones ([42:53]): “It’s all for real. Great, honest interpreter.”
• Don Was ([52:34]): “I don't like this new record. I'm so excited about it. It was just too much.”

Conclusion This episode of Hit Parade not only introduces listeners to the captivating Broken Record podcast but also provides an in-depth look into Norah Jones’s artistic evolution and her collaborative relationship with Don Was. Through engaging storytelling and insightful discussions, the episode celebrates the enduring spirit of jazz and the intricate processes behind creating timeless music.

Transcript

[Chris Melanthy]

Hey everyone, it's Chris Melanthy. Today we want to share a podcast we think Hit Parade listeners will love. It's called Broken Record, a show from our friends at Pushkin Industries. Each week, hosts Justin Richmond and Leah Rose sit down with the musicians you love for creative conversations about their life, inspiration and craft. You'll hear revealing interviews with some legendary musicians as well as new stars and up and comers too. Today we're sharing one of our favorite Broken Record episodes, a conversation with singer songwriter Norah Jones, co hosted by Blue Note Records President Don Wuz. Nora released her juggernaut debut album Come Away With Me on Blue Note Records way back in 2002, and in this episode she talks about her musical upbringing and what it was like striking big on her very first album. And Nora even shares a special performance. We've talked about Norah Jones on several prior episodes of Hit Parade, including our outkast, Grammys and AC DC Rule episodes. My fellow pop fans and chart nerds will enjoy Nora's revelations about listening to American Top 40 as a kid and learning from pop music. When you're done listening to this episode, be sure to check out Broken Record and follow the show. Now over to Justin Blue Note is.

[Justin Richmond]

One of the first and longest standing institutions of jazz music, and it's always been one of my favorite record labels. It started when my guitar teacher passed along Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage and the self titled album from Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, the one featuring Monin. It was the music, of course, that made the most lasting impression, but there was the artwork. Also, no label had cooler branding than Blue Note. Later I'd find out that was thanks to people like Reed Miles, who was the label's art director, and Francis Wolf, who was a photographer that became an important executive at the label shortly after its founding in 1939. And in those 85 years, the label's put out albums by Robert Glasper, Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Bobby McFerrin, Gregory Porter, and so many more. So to celebrate 85 years of music from this iconic label, I thought I'd get together with Blue Notes current president Don was to speak with the labels past, present and future. That's Ron Carter, Michelle and Degio, Cello, Charles Lloyd, Julian Lodge, and today, Norah Jones. Nora's been with Blue Note Records her entire career, starting with her juggernaut 2002 debut Come Away With Me to her latest album, Visions, that was put out just this year. Visions was created with New York's Leon Michelles of El Michelle's affair and their two distinctive sounds. Nora and Leon's blend beautifully. Nora was the first interview Don and I did in this series. It came together quickly and Hollywood studio Sunset Sound was kind enough to accommodate us at the last minute, not only for a chat with Nora, but also a performance. And I should tell you before we begin that you can binge the entire Blue Note anniversary series early and ad free by subscribing to Pushkin plus on the Broken Record show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin fm. Plus, this is Broken Record liner notes for the digital age. I'm Justin Richmond. Here's Don woods and myself in conversation with Norah Jones. To see the full video version of this episode, go to YouTube.com broken record podcast.

[Leah Rose]

Well, I'm excited. This is the 85th anniversary of Blue Note.

[Don Was]

That's wild.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Leah Rose]

The year 2024. We have Nora Jones here. We're gonna celebrate the 85th anniversary of Blue Note with a series of guests. Our first being Nora Jones, who's releasing her ninth album with Blue Note. Newest album is Visions. And also to celebrate, we have Don was president of Blue Note Records and is gonna be a guest with us on these episodes.

[Norah Jones]

Lovely to be here. Thank you, man.

[Leah Rose]

So excited to have the both of you here.

[Don Was]

Thanks and.

[Leah Rose]

Love the new album. I want to get to that, but first, I want to ask Don your first recollections of Norah Jones as an artist.

[Norah Jones]

Sandra Bullock turned me on to you.

[Don Was]

In person or in the movie Two Weeks Notice.

[Norah Jones]

I was going to work on that movie.

[Don Was]

Oh, really?

[Norah Jones]

And she said, we want to have this artist. You got to hear this record. And it was, I think before the album came out, but she had an advanced copy and. And she sent it to me. I said, yeah, it's incredible. And then I ended up not working on the movie, but. Yeah, but you were in it.

[Don Was]

I was in it. I was in a scene that Donald Trump was in also, which is so weird going back. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was cool, though. She was really sweet.

[Norah Jones]

She loved it.

[Don Was]

So sweet. Yeah.

[Leah Rose]

So she had. How. How did she become aware of, I.

[Norah Jones]

Don'T know, advanced copy of the record.

[Don Was]

That I didn't know.

[Norah Jones]

And she was looking for music to put in her movie. I can't even remember the name of the movie.

[Don Was]

Two Weeks Notice. Two Weeks Notice with Hugh Grant.

[Norah Jones]

Yes, that's right.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

Right.

[Don Was]

That's funny. I didn't know she had an advanced copy. Yeah, I think we shot it somewhere in November and the album had come out in February. And it was kind of a slow, steady rise that year. Yeah, it's.

[Justin Richmond]

It's.

[Leah Rose]

That kind of is the perfect illustration of how quickly you kind of went from somebody playing music for fun to getting signed to recording an album. And the album just sort of becoming a phenomenon. The fact that. That early in your recording career, you're in a Sandra Bullock. I mean, that was a huge movie at the time.

[Don Was]

You know, that was a big movie.

[Norah Jones]

Well, I want to get to that, but I'd kind of like to start at the. At the beginning.

[Don Was]

Okay.

[Norah Jones]

I got this. This image of Grapevine, Texas, as being like the city and Last Picture Show.

[Don Was]

Oh, like a tiny little town.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

Like tumbleweeds.

[Don Was]

Yeah. Not at all.

[Norah Jones]

It's not. Right. It's like a suburb of Dallas.

[Don Was]

It's a suburb of Dallas. When I was little, it was very small, though. There was a McDonald's and nothing else. But it is now, like, one of the biggest. I mean, it's. It's just, I think, strip malls and chain restaurants and it's got one of the biggest malls in Texas. It's quite the suburb. Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

So it didn't have, like, a small town mentality to it.

[Don Was]

Maybe it did. I think it was kind of a small town. When I was little, I really was only there until I was maybe. I guess I was there till 9th grade. I kind of bounced around, though, and I bounced around schools a lot. And we moved to Alaska for six months. Then we came back and I went to the. And then I went to Colleyville, which is the neighboring town. And then, you know what I mean, I was kind of all over it.

[Norah Jones]

I dig. All right, so. Because it seems a little incongruous that the world's most successful jazz singer comes out of Grapevine, but maybe not.

[Don Was]

I don't know. I was in marching band in ninth grade, and they had a. I had a saxophone teacher, John Rosina. And I had quit piano at that time because I didn't want to practice anymore. And he turned me onto this piano teacher named Julie Bonk, who lived in the area, who was a jazz pianist. Because Dallas, you know, and Denton, Texas, is a big jazz college.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, sure.

[Don Was]

So that kind of got me going on the jazz tip. But I grew up singing in church choir at Grapevine Methodist Church.

[Norah Jones]

Wow.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

Did you listen? Like, I got a son who's. He's a year or two older than you, but I remember what he was listening to and, you know, like, Paula Abdul and Milli Vanilli and Bobby Brown. So you were in?

[Don Was]

Absolutely. I loved Paula Abdul. That album. That one album was just. It was huge. Straight up. Yeah. Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

It's actually. It was a great record.

[Don Was]

It was a great record. The songs are really good. I think I covered one during COVID Cause I was just like in a wormhole. Yeah. I was into all that stuff growing up. I listened to Casey Kasem every weekend.

[Norah Jones]

Do you remember the first record you bought?

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

What was it?

[Don Was]

It was Digital Underground. Wow.

[Norah Jones]

So that's pretty hip.

[Don Was]

Cause the humpty dances the radio. And then my first concert was MC Hammer.

[Norah Jones]

Wow.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

Were you a shy kid?

[Don Was]

I was kind of shy. I wasn't that shy until seventh grade. I think in sixth grade I was like completely unaware of how I was perceived. And I was completely open and you know that time in your life where you don't care what people think. And then I remember there were some girls at school who were kind of mean. And I think I realized towards the end of the year I just got really self aware and self conscious and I kind of went inside, you know. Did you encounter racism towards me?

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

Not that I was aware of. I never was aware.

[Norah Jones]

That's good.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Leah Rose]

I'm mixed as well. I'm black and white. My mom's white, my dad's black. And I feel like there was a time when it was less common to be mixed.

[Don Was]

Yes.

[Leah Rose]

And so that was kind of like a weird experience not knowing many other people who were of two. Two cultures.

[Don Was]

Did you.

[Leah Rose]

Did you feel of two cultures or did you feel.

[Don Was]

Well, I felt a lot of. I mean, I didn't see a ton of my dad. I grew up seeing my dad, but because I wasn't in his culture so much, I didn't feel very of two cultures, but I did feel a little different. And people never really knew what I was. And they would always ask, but they always assumed I was Mexican, especially in Texas. And then like. Like they would speak Spanish to me and then I wouldn't speak Spanish because I didn't know Spanish. And then I felt bad, you know, like, I'm sorry. Like. But then. Yeah. And then in high school, some people thought I was half black and they just didn't know what to make of me. But I never encountered any negativity from it. Just nosiness. You know what I mean?

[Leah Rose]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

What are you. That question was always funny, but I never got offended at it.

[Norah Jones]

So you fit in. I have this image of being like someone who was 30 years late for being a beatnik.

[Don Was]

Well, I mean, I Think as a kid I was just sort of like other kids. Just weird, you know, all kids are kind of weird, I think. And then in junior high, when kids were starting to get into football, especially in Texas cheerleading, I wanted to be a cheerleader, and my mom wouldn't let me because it was too expensive, I think. And then. And then I got into band. So then I was with my people, the band nerds, you know, So I felt like you always kind of find your thing. And then in high school, I went to performing arts high school in Dallas, which was completely all people of artistic, you know, interests.

[Norah Jones]

And that's, like. Didn't, like, Roy Hargrove go to that school? And Erykah Badu. Yeah. So it's a great school.

[Don Was]

Great school.

[Norah Jones]

And there was an influence. There was an emphasis put on jazz.

[Don Was]

Yeah. I think I was a jazz piano major, but I still had to take a classical piano class, which I was horrible at. And I still had to take. I took. Actually, it was kind of cool because they had a synthesis ensemble.

[Norah Jones]

Wow.

[Don Was]

And so I took a synthesis class with my heroes. My. Some. Some guys in my class, they were older and they really. I know, they were just really insanely amazing musicians. So that was really fun. We had, like a DX7 and a Moog, and we all. The teacher encouraged us to all write songs, and we actually put out a cassette tape. Do you have that tape? I Must somewhere. My song, I hated on it. I hated it so much because it had, like, synth strings on it, which wasn't really what I wanted, but.

[Leah Rose]

So that can be a rough sound.

[Don Was]

Yeah, that's not what I was going for, but that's what ended up happening. It was fine, but it was just funny.

[Norah Jones]

Where did the jazz come in?

[Don Was]

After I quit piano because I didn't want to practice. My mom said I had to take for five years and then I could quit. So I'm five years on the dot. I quit. Yeah. Sixth grade. And then I. She took me to a big band concert at University of North Texas, which is funny. That's how I got into jazz. But I liked it. And so she found a saxophone teacher, and that's when I joined band. And then he found me. The. The jazz piano teacher.

[Norah Jones]

Right.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah. I never made my kids practice. They're all. All three of my sons are musicians. And I always thought making them practice was, like, the worst thing. Supposed to be the thing you escaped from work to.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

And. But you got the background. So when you wanted to. When you finally felt compelled to play you didn't have to start from scratch.

[Don Was]

She was right. I had the foundation.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was good.

[Norah Jones]

So then you went to North Texas.

[Don Was]

And then I ended up going to North Texas, yeah, for two years for piano.

[Norah Jones]

And that was. That was really a jazz program.

[Don Was]

It was very jazz. And in high school, I was in the vocal ensemble, too, even though piano was my major. And then college, same thing. I started out just doing piano, and then I joined the vocal ensemble, too, like the jazz singers. And so I sang a little bit, but it wasn't my main focus for school.

[Norah Jones]

You know, the only time I ever saw Willie Nelson get mad was in a session that we did. And he came back in the room to listen to a playback, and the engineer had his guitar down, and he just. He just couldn't understand why anyone would separate his singing from his guitar, why they wouldn't be at an equal level. Because to him, it was one form, one solitary expression when it was coming from his vocal cords or his fingers.

[Don Was]

That makes sense.

[Norah Jones]

Was there a point where the two became inextricable to you? Where you weren't, like. Where it's just one expression?

[Don Was]

I mean, I don't think I realized it till the last 10 years, but I think in college, because I sang and I played, but I didn't really do it together so much. I mean, I tried, but I had a couple demos where I did. But I got a gig at a restaurant in Dallas called Popolo's. It was an Italian restaurant, and somehow I got a gig playing every Friday and Saturday night. And I asked if I could sing, too, because that wasn't really the gig. And they said, sure, but not, like, every song. And so that was my paid practice. And that's how they got sort of like, the coordination factor. Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

I don't know if people understand what a great pianist you are. I hear it in the. Your voicings are incredibly sophisticated. So you clearly studied theory and you understand your scales and your modes and all that. And I just think you're such a great singer that it might get overlooked. But you're an incredible pianist.

[Don Was]

Thanks, Don.

[Norah Jones]

I mean, were you. Were you in bands as just a keyboard player?

[Don Was]

No, I wasn't. I was still, you know, as far as the piano players in college and high school, I mean, everyone else could play circles around me. I never had a lot of chops. I still don't. I can't play very fast. But, yeah, I have my own thing that has developed over the years, but I think. I think just over the last 10 years, even. I've played so much more piano live. Sort of stripping my band back into trio form at some point. That I've just. I just have gotten a lot better in the last 10 years. And it's been really fun to play, you know, I feel more connected to it than I did even 15 years ago, you know?

[Norah Jones]

Is it hard now when you have to. When you're in a situation where you have an accompanist. Does that ever come up where you just have to stand and sing?

[Don Was]

I'm not great at it. I'm much better if I accompany myself. And, like, if there's a situation where there's a house band or a tribute show. I always try to play, you know, Because I feel like I can do my thing a little easier. But it depends on the situation, of course. Yeah, sometimes it's fun to have an accompanist if it's the right person, but.

[Leah Rose]

So there is a bit of a willy thing, though, where it does feel like I do these things together and.

[Justin Richmond]

Not so much apart.

[Don Was]

I do think that where I can do my thing, which is more special. It's when they're together. Yeah, absolutely.

[Norah Jones]

Gives you something to bounce off of.

[Don Was]

Also, I'm really not great at standing and singing. Because I don't know what to do with my hands. So even in college, I was in a couple bands where I Just saying. And I think it was a good match musically. But I always just stood there looking really awkward.

[Norah Jones]

That's a whole other thing, especially if you're used to that. But I think it's rhythmically, too. I was just. I was talking to Lucinda Williams, who's having trouble.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

Playing guitar. And she just. What's. She's got no rhythmic point of reference. Bob Dylan's another person like that. His guitar playing was so essential to the way he sang that when he stopped being the primary source of accompaniment. His singing changed. And he's been looking for a band that would play the way he plays.

[Don Was]

But it's not that. It's that he's doing the thing and filling the space with part of him. Probably it's more that. That you're not filling the space. And. Yeah, I feel like when I record, I'm always getting a better vocal and piano take. If I am doing it at the same time live. If I overdub the piano or the vocal. It can be cool if it's the first or second take. But the more takes I do, I get really busy or like I overthink or I over sing or I overplay, and it's just not the same.

[Norah Jones]

All right, so when you finally go to New York City, you dropped out of college, right? Yeah, I did, too. It's a good move.

[Don Was]

Yeah, well, I didn't want to. I didn't want to teach, so I didn't know that I needed a music degree. And I also failed my classical piano jury. That's. I'm not proud of that, but I am not afraid to admit it. So I was also faced with, like, having to do six semesters of classical piano, and I had already failed the first one, which was pretty sad.

[Norah Jones]

So there was no alternative.

[Don Was]

And it's really just because I didn't practice. It's not because I couldn't do it. It was because I didn't practice.

[Leah Rose]

Were you busy doing other things besides practicing, or.

[Don Was]

I mean, I was practicing for other classes. I was playing in two bands. I was doing gigs. So I wasn't. I wasn't practicing my classical piano.

[Leah Rose]

Got it.

[Don Was]

Or my. My arpeggios.

[Leah Rose]

It was back to the original quandary, almost, of your piano playing, of us being forced to do, you know, a sight reading in classical. And when you got into your own thing, fell back in love, but now you're kind of going back to just not the stuff I like.

[Don Was]

Yeah, I didn't want to do that.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, it's interesting. Same for me. I went to the University of Michigan, but this was in 1970, and if you wanted to be in the music program, you were in the orchestra or you weren't in the music program.

[Don Was]

Yeah, exactly.

[Norah Jones]

There was no recording lab or electronic music lab or no jazz program, nothing like that.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

So I knew what I wanted to do. So when you got to New York, were you. Did you. Were you thinking that you'd be someone like Shirley Horne, you know, a jazz singer?

[Don Was]

I didn't really know, but at that point, I was still way into jazz. And so I got a gig at a Italian restaurant, another Italian restaurant, but it paid way less than the Texas one. Did I tell you that? And I was just. I was going to Smalls every night, watching people play, and just so in love with going to hear music every night. I mean, I went out and I heard music every night of the week, and I would hear Brazilian bands, I would hear jazz. I would go to see. You know, there were so many different jazz scenes, too, in New York. There was. There was the small scene and then there was the tonic scene, which was kind of avant garde. And I knew some people in that scene. And I knew some people in that scene, so there was all these different scenes.

[Norah Jones]

Tonic as in tone.

[Don Was]

It was a club.

[Norah Jones]

Oh, Oh.

[Don Was]

A club called Tonic.

[Leah Rose]

Tonic seems to be great.

[Don Was]

Yeah. Yeah. And then I had friends who were songwriters, and I would go see them play at the Living Room.

[Norah Jones]

Right.

[Don Was]

And that was totally different for me because I had never thought about songwriting since my synthesizer class song that I. I don't know. I think I wrote two songs for that class, which I still think is so cool that he encourages to write songs. But I think I was embarrassed by them because, you know, it was an assignment. And so we had to show them and we recorded them and they didn't come out or. I liked it, but I didn't like the way I sounded. You know how it is when you hear yourself for the first time. It takes a long time to do it in a way that you like it. And so I was a little put off by myself, and so I didn't write after that at all.

[Leah Rose]

Put you off to songwriting like that?

[Don Was]

Yeah. I was like, oh, I'm not good at that. I didn't even think of it as something that I should do.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

It was weird now, thinking back, that it didn't even, like, occur to me that I could get better at it.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

Or do it differently. I don't know. And so then when I was seeing all my friends at the Living Room, I was. I was getting inspired. And I didn't have a piano yet because I. You know, I lived in a rental and I didn't have a keyboard or anything. And so my mom sent me this old guitar that I had in Texas that I knew two chords on, and I played, like, five chords. I learned five chords. And I wrote Come Away With Me One Night and. And then I started writing songs.

[Norah Jones]

That's good.

[Don Was]

Yeah. And. Oh, I think because the guitar. I could play really simple chords on piano. I knew all these cool chords, but I didn't know how a song fit in. And they always sounded like a standard, and then it sounded not. I don't know. The piano, I couldn't make sound. How I wanted to write songs with at the time. I couldn't put that together yet.

[Norah Jones]

Just, you know. And I know that you don't think about genre. I don't know any musician who sits there and thinks, well, I think I'll phrase this next line like a jazz line. And then I'll throw in, it doesn't work that way.

[Don Was]

No, you're just you.

[Norah Jones]

But did you. Was there a disparity between what you were hearing at Smalls and what you.

[Don Was]

Were hearing at the Living Room, it was just different. I mean, the people playing at Smalls were incredible musicians. And then the people playing at the Living Room were playing really simple chords and writing really great songs. And so I did all these gigs, but I wasn't playing in clubs yet because I wasn't really there yet. I did a lot of restaurant gigs where nobody listened. And then my friend Jesse Harris, who's the songwriter, asked if I would do some demos for him. He had a Sony publishing deal, and so I sang a few of his songs for his demos, and he loved the way I sang them. And he said, let's do a gig at the Living Room. Why not? It's just. I mean, you don't get paid. It's not like that hard to get it. And he was already playing there. So I said, all right, sure. Maybe we'll do Come Away With Me, the song I wrote, you know. And so we did his songs. We did, like one or two of mine. And my bass player, Lee Alexander, started writing songs. We did a few of his. And that was sort of the beginning of the first album. And it was a really big moment because it was the first time I'd played in a place like that. And they passed a tip jar around and you couldn't. You could hear a pin drop. Nobody was talking. Everybody was listening. And I hadn't experienced that yet, really.

[Norah Jones]

And it got over? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Leah Rose]

Did it freak you out then, to have it? I mean, in the moment?

[Don Was]

No, it was nice. I mean, I was nervous, but it was nice, you know? Wow, imagine that. People listening.

[Norah Jones]

So is that around the same time that the woman from EMI Publishing came? Who. I forgot her name.

[Don Was]

Shell White. Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

And she. How did she end up coming to hear you play?

[Don Was]

Her husband. My bass player played with her husband. And I also did. Had done a gig or I ended up doing a gig with him. And so they were friends. He was musician J.C. hopkins. So they came. It was my 21st birthday. We were playing at the garage on 7th Avenue. We were playing Jazz Brunch Trio. And they came to hear us. And she's like, hey, you know, I just was at a company picnic and I met Bruce Lenvall, the head of Blue Note Records. I'm gonna set up a meeting. How about that? I was like, okay, whatever. I didn't really.

[Norah Jones]

Did you aspire to get a record deal?

[Don Was]

I was aspiring to pay my rent and to get a gig at a non brunch. Venue.

[Leah Rose]

Get out of Italian.

[Don Was]

My sights were not very far ahead of my next week. Yeah, get out of restaurants and into a club. Like, I was so not even there yet.

[Norah Jones]

But you were aware of the legacy of Blue Note records.

[Don Was]

I knew Blue Note Records, so I was not gonna say no.

[Norah Jones]

Did you own some Blue Note records?

[Don Was]

Absolutely.

[Norah Jones]

What were your favorites?

[Don Was]

I don't know. I always liked that. Something else. Cannonball. Outerly record. I mean, I think I didn't even know which ones were Blue Note, but I know I owned a lot of them.

[Justin Richmond]

We'll be back with more from Don woods and myself in conversation with Norah Jones. We're back with more from Norah Jones.

[Norah Jones]

So there you are. You're in a meeting with the head of Blue Note. And how did that go?

[Don Was]

Well, I didn't know if I was gonna have to play. Like, that's not really. That feels so embarrassing to me to go into an office and audition for somebody like that. So I didn't know. I brought in a demo, I had a three song demo that I brought around to restaurants to get gigs. And on the demo I put a song from maybe college that I had recorded, a standard and then a song I had recorded in New York with a friend, a standard with bass and trumpet on it. And then I threw one of the Jesse Harris songs from the demos we made on there.

[Norah Jones]

Right.

[Don Was]

And so Bruce listened and he. He liked it. And then after the Jesse song came on, he goes, well, what do you want to be, a jazz singer or a pop singer? I was like, jazz singer. I'm hearing Blue Note record as jazz singer.

[Leah Rose]

Correct answer, right?

[Don Was]

Yeah. But I also, like, I don't. I don't think I was thinking about that.

[Norah Jones]

Well, I don't think there's that big a difference. I've listened to all three of those and with the. Jesse song's got like a. Is it a Dobro?

[Don Was]

The Jesse song we had played him was a. It was just sort of six, eight, like country song.

[Norah Jones]

I mean, what instrument was. There's something kind of picking on it.

[Don Was]

Right? There was no. This was just. It's called World of Trouble. It was piano and guitar.

[Norah Jones]

Okay.

[Don Was]

Yeah. And bass.

[Norah Jones]

So there were some textural differences. But you sang. The way you approached the song and the voice you use, it wasn't like you. You sang, you know, Jesse song with like a twang or any. I thought you're incredibly consistent.

[Don Was]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know when I made the. I mean, I grew up mimicking my favorite singers. That's how you learn. Right.

[Norah Jones]

Who were they?

[Don Was]

I mean, I tried. I should say I tried to mimic Aretha and all her. All her background singing. You know, I was always doing the harmonies to Ain't no Way. But, I mean, Billie Holiday was a big one. I. I got. Actually got a part as Billie Holiday in the high school. They did a black history program every year, and somehow I got to play Billie Holiday, which is crazy. It was just a program with lots of different stuff, and I was like. I went into. That was weird because I had to audition. We all. We auditioned in front of the whole group of students.

[Norah Jones]

It was.

[Don Was]

I was like, ah. And I sang. I think I sang, like, Fight and Mellow or something. But the actual song for the performance was Strange Fruit, which was also crazy.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

You know, and it's heavy for.

[Norah Jones]

For.

[Leah Rose]

For high school to. And to not only have to sing it in front of people and find the. It's heavy.

[Don Was]

Very heavy. And I'm also not black, so, you know, people. People thought you were, but I think. I think maybe they did. And I. I did. Definitely did not tell them I was, but I think maybe there was a little bit of a mystery surrounding my background. I'm not really sure. I'm actually not sure about that.

[Leah Rose]

Did you try to. Did you try to sing it like Billy or.

[Norah Jones]

Or.

[Don Was]

Yes. Yeah, I definitely tried to sound like Billy. That was an amazing experience. The. The director, Nedra James, she was incredible. She really taught me a lot about embodying something, you know, because I wasn't into theater. I wasn't in the theater group, but she was like the theater director, and she. I don't know. The way she told me to do it was really. It was very spiritual. She was talking about Billy and her life and everything, which, of course, you know, I didn't know that much about yet. I just knew I loved her. Yeah. Her singing.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah. So, Aretha. Billy.

[Don Was]

Billy. God. Judy Garland. You know, I was trying to convince.

[Leah Rose]

The other day that Judy Garland is one of the great. I mean, at least 20 greatest singers ever.

[Don Was]

Oh, you had to convince them. What kind of a snob is this?

[Leah Rose]

I mean, you know, I don't know. I guess people think maybe of her as hokey, but I don't know. I mean, when you think about the standards that have come from her, the definitive versions of certain phrasings.

[Norah Jones]

Brilliant, man. Yeah. It's all for real. Great, honest interpreter.

[Don Was]

Yeah. Yeah. And incredible. Well, I love the Carnegie hall live album. It's really hard. A lot of heart.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

And as I Got older, I think I realized that that's all that matters, really. And I remember in high college, once, I was singing a stand. I was playing a demo for a friend of mine, and he. And it was a jazz standard. And he's like, gosh, you can really hear your Texas twang no matter what you do. And I was like, really? I didn't. I didn't know that. And he's like, yeah, it's really cool. And I was like, that's cool. Okay. And I think that was one of those moments where I sort of was like, okay, I can kind of be myself, and I don't have to imitate Ella, you know, or Sarah Vaughan. I loved Sarah Vaughan. I was obsessed with Sarah Vaughan. But I mean. Yeah, I mean, some of my favorite voices are imperfect or weird or whatever they are, but they embody them themselves. You know, they're their own thing.

[Norah Jones]

All right, so then. Then you get the chance to make a record.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

And I. I thought, like, calling Craig street was a smart move.

[Don Was]

Well, I was obsessed with New Moon Daughter, the Cassandra Wilson album.

[Norah Jones]

Is that. Is that the one where she does I'm so Lonesome? Yeah.

[Don Was]

I mean, I love that album.

[Norah Jones]

That tied it all together.

[Don Was]

Well, I loved that album so much. It was so different from anything else I listened to. And I remember being in high school, and, I mean, that album was really emotional for me because my aunt was dying of cancer, and I was listening to it nonstop in Florida with my aunt. So it was very emotional for me for that reason. But also, it was the first time I'd had an album of a singer where there's just guitar. It's all acoustic guitars on that album. There's no keys at all.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

And it just had such a different sound. You know, it was earthy and kind of. It had, like, some twang on it, but. And she's Southern, so she has a little twang, and she's incredible. And, yeah, it was cool.

[Norah Jones]

Those are great records. And. And so you. You called Craig and started to make.

[Don Was]

I asked Bruce if I could use Craig, and he's like, yeah, okay, I'll call Craig.

[Norah Jones]

You discovered that it was probably a more function of mixing, really, than it's like, you did achieve the thing you went in to work with Craig for.

[Don Was]

We did. I mean, we made a 21. We recorded 21 songs in a week and mixed it immediately. And maybe it wasn't the smartest way to do it with. I think space is always the place when you're recording. And then we turned the record in and it got rejected. And I was kind of scared and sad, but also a little relieved because I didn't love. I didn't feel like it came out exactly like it could have. But, yeah, in hindsight, I think the mixes were not right. And again, I think space would have been the place, and we would have used what was great, and we would have either redone or used some demos from something else. And then that ended up being what happened. We used three of the amazing takes from that. That session on the record.

[Norah Jones]

Don't Know why it was the first take. Right. From your demos. Right.

[Don Was]

Don't Know why was the first take of the demos we made. Because Blue Note gave me some money to make demos before they decided if they wanted to sign me. And then whenever Bruce heard the demos and he liked them, he called me and he was like, all right, this isn't jazz. This is country. Some of it, even, but I don't care. Let's do it. Let's make a record. That's kind of how he was.

[Leah Rose]

Funny review.

[Don Was]

Yeah. I was like, all right.

[Norah Jones]

He was just the greatest, wasn't he? His enthusiasm.

[Don Was]

Yeah, Bruce was great. Bruce was so great and. But he was also so into jazz. I mean, later on, after many, many years, I made records that I made the Fall. And then I made Little Broken Hearts with Danger Masks. And we went to lunch one day, and he's like, well, I'm gonna be honest with you. I didn't like those records when you turned them in. They're not really my thing. But I think now I like them. And I get it now. I get it. And I thought that was cool.

[Norah Jones]

That's real cool.

[Don Was]

He never kissed my butt. He never told me he liked him. So I never really thought about him not saying anything, but it was fine.

[Norah Jones]

I don't think you had a shift in sensibilities or a shift in your style of delivering the songs. You were always you. But the. The textures kind of changed dramatically over the. You know, Which I think is a cool thing. That's what Miles did. You know, if you listen to Miles, whether it's with an electric band or whether it's on Kind of Blue or in the Herbie Wayne, Tony Ron Band, you know, he always sounded like Miles. He was always Miles. And he just kept it interesting for himself by changing the textures. After the success of Come Away With Me, were you trying to avoid getting pigeonholed into Piano Trio?

[Don Was]

I was just excited to keep finding stuff, and I was really getting into songwriting. I only wrote Two or three songs on Come Away With Me, and the rest were Jesse songs, Lee songs and a few covers. And I loved doing them, but I was excited to write and I was getting into, like, bluegrass that year. So the second album was a little more country, but everyone in the band wrote for it. And so we did everyone in the band songs and I wrote a little more. But we had the same engineer and same producer. Arif, of course, Arif Martin. Let's talk about that. Yeah, Arif, you gotta talk about.

[Norah Jones]

Arif is, you know, certainly one of my great heroes and a guy who I aspired to want to emulate. I don't feel I ever hit it, but I tried.

[Don Was]

No, I mean, I think you have the same spirit Arif did, which is just very nice. He embodied, like, sweetness and goodness, and you have that. Absolutely. Thank you.

[Norah Jones]

That's very kind.

[Don Was]

Thank you.

[Norah Jones]

Those are, like, making records with him.

[Don Was]

It ended up being so fun. And I never thought I would have this old man as a friend, you know? Same thing with Bruce. I always thought that was so funny. I could go to lunch with Arif or Bruce and we could drink martinis for hours and just blah, blah, blah, blah, talk about relationships. Like, I would talk about my boyfriend. You know what I mean? They were like my friends. And I always thought that was funny.

[Leah Rose]

How did Arif, like, join the project? How did.

[Don Was]

Actually, Arif had just started. Either started or revamped, I'm not sure. Maybe, you know, Manhattan Records, which was a sort of sister label to Blue Note that Bruce oversaw, which was either classical or musical theater, kind of adult contemporary, I think. Yes. Adult contemporary, yes.

[Leah Rose]

It would have revamped it because I think that started in the 80s maybe. So it probably was revamped.

[Don Was]

That's what it was.

[Norah Jones]

He left Atlantic and went to do that.

[Don Was]

Yeah. So whenever the Craig street version of the record got sort of rejected, Bruce said that he wanted me to go back in with a Reef Martin. And I was a little confused. I was like, well, you like the demos we did on our own? Should we just do that? And of course, I respected everything Marife had done, but I was starting to get a little protective at this point and, like, stubborn. And I didn't know if he still, you know, like, I didn't know if it was gonna be strings and stuff I didn't want on there, you know, or what. So I was a little hesitant, to be honest. Even though he was a legend and I'm obsessed with all the stuff he did with Donny Hathaway and Aretha. And. But then. So Bruce said, why don't we just set up a meeting? We'll go into a rehearsal space. We went to this rehearsal space. It was so silly. And like, he came in and he's this sweet old man and he sits down and I play or something. I don't know, it was weird. And then Bruce said, well, you guys have a four days booked in the studio. He'll just come the first day and if it goes well, then he can come the rest of the days. I don't know if he ever told Arif that, but that's what was my understanding. And so, because it was still just my band, he didn't hire the band. It was still my band. And I hired the band and the engineer. And so that's what happened. He came in for the first day. He was super sweet. He had great ears and he didn't try to impose anything on us, I think, which was my main thing. But he definitely helped guide us into the right directions every time. And. All right, he can stay. It was like, kind of funny, but. And he.

[Norah Jones]

What would he make suggestions about?

[Don Was]

Actually, when I did the Nearness of youf, which is the old Hoagie Carmichael, Ned Washington song, and I play it solo, there's a part on it, the nearness of you. The nearness of you, or whatever the melody is, I was kind of like. I think I had sung that song for a long time and I was kind of phrasing it a little loosely. And he said, no, I know. I like how you're phrasing it, but at least the first time, can you just hit the actual melody on the actual linearness of. Because it's such a classic song. Hit that melody. Every time I sing that song now, I think about him. But, yeah, stuff like that. Like, he wasn't trying to put me in a box or. Or change anything. It was just the stuff that makes the melodies, you know, the stuff that we needed to hear. Picking a take, comping vocals. You know, he had this crazy, like, contraption. He used to comp vocals from the 70s.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, I remember that.

[Don Was]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Leah Rose]

So you could just compare different. Different takes.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, you could do crossfades.

[Don Was]

Yeah, he would put it into this.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, it was two faders box.

[Don Was]

It was like very old school. Yeah. He was just so cool. And in the end I just grew to love him so much. So I was just very. I was just afraid in the beginning.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

You know, afraid of strings. And it's funny because he was a great string arranger. And I almost never let him do an arrangement for me. Actually, for the Sandra Bullock movie, she wanted Nearness of youf, but she wanted it with, like, strings or something. And that's when he finally got to do it. We took the album version and he just made a really nice string arrangement and then we used it and he was so excited. And I remember he came to the shoot.

[Leah Rose]

Would you mind showing demonstrating just the difference between how you were singing it versus how he wanted you to sing it?

[Don Was]

Sure.

[Leah Rose]

Okay.

[Don Was]

On the piano.

[Leah Rose]

On the piano.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's miked up and running. Great. Fantastic.

[Don Was]

The nearness of you. And he was like, no go.

[F]

The nearness of you.

[Don Was]

It's a.

[F]

It isn't your sweet conversation.

[Don Was]

That brings.

[F]

This sensation on now.

[Don Was]

Oh, I think it's just the. That's what it was.

[F]

It's just the nearness of you.

[Don Was]

That's like. I was doing something like that maybe. And he's like, it's just the nearness of you. He's like, no, you gotta do. Hit that. It's just.

[F]

It's just the nearness of you or what?

[Don Was]

Yeah, it's that little turn in the bottom.

[Norah Jones]

That's good advice. I think it was good advice.

[Don Was]

Yeah, yeah. Do the melody at least once before you start messing with it.

[Leah Rose]

That makes it. That sound. That sound Advice.

[Don Was]

Yeah, it's good advice. And then for the second record, he. He was also. He came with us. We just. We all had fun.

[Justin Richmond]

How did that.

[Chris Melanthy]

Did you.

[Justin Richmond]

Just.

[Leah Rose]

Because you just enjoyed his presence and so you asked. I mean, well, and because he. He was helpful and you brought him back.

[Don Was]

I think we were going to go into the studio and he called me. He's like, well, I mean, I don't want to come in later again. I was like, okay, let's do it. Like, I wasn't even. I feel like at that point I was just trying to record and seeing what kind of songs I had, you know, So I wasn't even really making the second album until we were almost done, if that makes sense, which I like. Recording like that.

[Leah Rose]

Were you getting. You probably were getting a lot of people wanting to come in to make your second record with you too, I'd imagine. Right.

[Don Was]

I don't remember that happening at all, actually. I think we were pretty insular at that point. And I think Bruce really wanted Arif to do it and Arif really wanted to do it, and we loved Arif, so it just. There was never any question of changing it up. I think it was more just like, let's just see what happens in the studio and not overthink it. Because I didn't want to make it be a thing where we were thinking about it being a follow up in the studio and we kind of didn't.

[Norah Jones]

We definitely didn't.

[Don Was]

Yeah, we went up to upstate to Allaire with a reef for like a week or like maybe five days and we had so much fun. And oh, the, the funny part was that when we recorded Come Away With Me, the one rule was that a reef leaves at six o'clock every night. And I remember at the time thinking that was ridiculous because we wanted to squeeze every second out of the studio. And I was used to recording late and drinking and like, you know, seeing what happened. But we did it his way and it was kind of nice.

[Norah Jones]

It worked out.

[Don Was]

Yeah. And then at Allaire, I didn't think he would go for it because I know he liked to go home. He had a wonderful wife and dinner and, you know, but he wanted to. And he came up, we had so much fun drinking martinis. They called him the Mardini. He used to make these very lethal martinis. And I remember him coming down in his pajamas one night. We stayed up and he had gone to bed and he came down in his pajamas with his martini glass to get some water from the cooler in his martini. And then I remember him in his like his robe going up the stairs. It was cute. It was like such a fun time.

[Norah Jones]

So he could hang.

[Don Was]

Oh, he hung, yeah.

[Norah Jones]

But he just chose.

[Don Was]

He just didn't want to make the work late, you know.

[Norah Jones]

What do you think about that? The older I get, I start to think, you know, nothing good happens after eight hours.

[Don Was]

Oh, that's how I work now. But I'm also on a different schedule. But yeah, absolutely. I just want to eat dinner and like turn my brain off after five. I don't wanna, I don't wanna.

[Norah Jones]

No. I've ruined records by staying up for 36 hours.

[Don Was]

Really?

[Norah Jones]

Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, thankfully you get some sleep and then you catch it the next day. Rather than say I've ruined records, I would say I've wasted a lot of time going down.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

Pro Tools first came out. All the plugins, you can go down.

[Don Was]

The plugin abyss and the tracks Unlimited is not always a good thing. I did get some really good late night after a long dinner and a few drinks takes though. And sometimes that works out.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

But I never was somebody who did more than three or four takes of a song. Maybe there was an occasional, like, five or six takes, but. But that was it. There was never. We never beat anything into the ground.

[Norah Jones]

You know, that's good.

[Don Was]

So that late night kind of thing works if you're just sort of having fun and playing music.

[Justin Richmond]

We'll be right back with more from Norah Jones after the break. We're back with the rest of Norah Jones's conversation with Don was. And me.

[Leah Rose]

Can I ask you about. We're talking about the second record. I don't miss you at all.

[Don Was]

Oh, yeah.

[Leah Rose]

So interesting that that's. You wrote the lyrics over. It's a Duke Ellington composition. When you wrote the lyrics.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Leah Rose]

Was that something that you'd done? And did you. How did you find Melancholia by Duke Ellington?

[Don Was]

I think my boyfriend was playing it. It's such an amazing album. So beautiful. And that song is just. I mean, it was just so good that I think I was just, like, trying to learn it and I just started singing and it just kind of happened by chance. And then I was like, maybe I'll try to record this. And then we did, and it was so pretty. And then I was like, I don't know if we're gonna get permission to do it like this. Cause I'm not trying to take advantage of this song or anything. I just really loved it and it just, you know, happened.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

And luckily we got to do it.

[Leah Rose]

It's beautiful, too. It's in the spirit of, you know, like, how many great compositions, you know, did a songwriter come in later and write, you know, a beautiful set of lyrics to, you know, and so it's totally not at all taken advantage. And it's. It's funny, though. It's hard not to hear the Duke Ellington song and not to hear even just the way you play it now, you know, it just. It kind of sounds like a Nora song.

[Don Was]

I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful melody.

[Leah Rose]

It's gorgeous.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

Duke, did you start doing that second album before the Grammys?

[Don Was]

No.

[Norah Jones]

So this is all after.

[Don Was]

No, we were just on tour for Non Stop. We were. And then after the Grammys, we did like, a huge tour of bigger venues.

[Norah Jones]

Right.

[Don Was]

So we were on tour for at least two years, I feel like, and doing promo and like, I was exhausted. I was not having fun the whole time.

[Norah Jones]

It's a whole lot to deal with.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

I went through it a little bit with Bonnie and. But I wasn't the artist, you know, but just to. I went from, like, not. I went from being a pariah as a record producer. To being in demand. And I feel sort of like even now, 35, 40 years later, I'm still kind of surfing that wave a little bit. It changed one. One night can, like, change your whole reality. But you had. You had a year.

[Don Was]

I had a year of it.

[Norah Jones]

Incredible trajectory.

[Don Was]

Yeah. But then the Grammys just, like, was insane.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

So. And then the next day, my picture was on the COVID of the New York Post next to Saddam Hussein's picture. It said, hunt and destroy. And then it was like a split screen, you know, it was like me and Saddam. And then on the Daily News. And then the New York Post the next day had a picture of my apartment, and it said how much rent I paid. And then I couldn't go home again. It was just weird.

[Norah Jones]

How'd you deal with it?

[Don Was]

I drank a lot.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

Yeah, I did. But I also had. I had my band. We were having fun. There was also a weird thing that was happening because my dad and I had been reunited when I was 18, and we started to really find our relationship, and it was great, and it was really nice to have that. And I got to know my sister finally, my half sister, Anoushka Shankar. And I did kind of finally get to know my Indian side a little bit, you know, which was a really beautiful new thing for me. And. And then all the stuff that happened with the record and the way they talked about my dad, or. It was never quite right, and somebody was always mad, you know.

[Leah Rose]

Someone in. Within your family.

[F]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

Like, either my mom felt like it wasn't represented right, or my dad did, or, you know, like, it was just kind of. That was actually a really hard thing for me, to be honest.

[Norah Jones]

You know, when people ask me about you, I say, lovely person, super talented, best singer in the world. But I also say if they press for more details, I think you're the sanest artist I know. Because I don't think you're trying to fill some huge hole in your soul by it, by. In a quest for fame. I think you do music for all the right reasons. And if you can't do it for the right reasons, you'd walk away. I don't see you sitting up strategizing about marketing or the brand late at night or anything. Can you relate to that?

[Don Was]

Yeah, I don't think I think about it that way, but I think also because the first record was so bananas.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

I don't have to. And I know that I don't quite want that again.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

I don't like this new record. I'm so excited about. And I, I. It's like, you know, I want people to hear it. I don't want it to just go unnoticed, but I don't think I would want it to be, like, my first record ever again. That was just too much.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

It was also really nice, but it was just like.

[Norah Jones]

It's a lot, and it's a lot for a young person to deal with.

[Don Was]

And with social media now, it's just like, you don't want to. You don't want to get all in that. You don't want to get too deep in.

[Norah Jones]

How long did it take to find a stable ground after all that, to think, all right, this is where I land. This is who I am. This is what I'm willing to do. This is what I'm not willing to do?

[Don Was]

I don't know. I think I found it quickly in a lot of ways, and it took a long time. In other ways, I think I was very stubborn, so I definitely got comfortable with saying no. But I also was excited to try everything, you know, like, sample everything that was put in front of me. I was. I got to play with all kinds of people. And, you know, it was amazing.

[Leah Rose]

Was the stubbornness you having boundaries and knowing your boundaries, or was your stubbornness? Was it more of a youthful.

[Don Was]

Both.

[Leah Rose]

Okay.

[Don Was]

Probably both. My mom is a very strong woman, and I learned a lot about that and how to be like that in the best way. But I also think I was just young and.

[Leah Rose]

Because your mom was a concert promoter.

[Don Was]

That'S how she met my dad. She wasn't when I was born. I don't think she was anymore.

[Leah Rose]

But I've been that at any point, to be a woman in that era, doing any amount of concert promoting for any amount of time, I imagine. Yeah. She learned how to throw her weight.

[Don Was]

Around, you know, I mean, have you met my mom?

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, sure.

[Don Was]

She's a strong woman.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah.

[Don Was]

I mean, she doesn't. She. You might be intimidated by her. And you're tall. She's tall. You know, like, I'm sure I would. She's like a strong, tall lady, so. And I'm short, but I. I still have some of her spirit. I think I was. I think I was just very rigid in what I didn't want, you know, I remember early on, the label wanted me to do a remix of Don't Know why, to get it to pop radio or something. And I was like, that's ridiculous. That's not a musical reason. And I didn't like the remix that they Gave me. And so I was like, no, and guess what? It somehow made it on pop radio anyway.

[Norah Jones]

Exactly.

[Don Was]

But like, now I'm into that if it's for an artistic reason. It just wasn't. Then it was for the wrong reason.

[Leah Rose]

I want to go back real quick because you mentioned earlier, writing Come Away With Me was like the first song.

[Don Was]

You wrote after the crappy ones.

[Leah Rose]

After your college days.

[Don Was]

No, high school.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah, high school. Right. In high school. I forgot. It's amazing you had a synth or synth ensemble.

[Don Was]

Ensemble in high school.

[Leah Rose]

It's crazy. Do you remember writing it? Do you remember that night? Do you remember what inspired it and how you felt?

[Don Was]

Yeah. I came home from the living room, seeing all my friends play, and. And I just sat in my tiny little bedroom and I played the five chords I knew. And it came out really fast. And I didn't have a voice recorder or anything and we didn't have cell phones yet. So I wrote it in my notebook and I wrote the chord changes above it. And being the theory nerd, I had taken theory classes since I was in second grade. For some reason, that's this kind of piano lessons I took. So I know how I knew how to notate, like the numbers of the chord. Yeah. I was like, 1, 2, 3, 1, 6, 5, 3, 1. You know, like I nerded out. But I. And I did that and I went to sleep and I. For. And then the next morning I was like, oh my God, I hope I remember that. What was that? And then I just was like, put it together. Yeah, I think it's a little different. It was a little different than what I had originally come up with. And I will never know.

[Norah Jones]

Because you didn't record it?

[Don Was]

Because I didn't record it. I don't remember.

[Leah Rose]

That's amazing.

[Norah Jones]

One time I saw Keith Richards, he was trying to do the same thing, but he didn't have the theory background. So he was staying at the Sunset Marquee and had a piano in his room. Came to his room the next morning and he had taped. Put piece of masking tape down with numbers. Like the order that you play the notes in.

[Don Was]

That's so funny.

[Norah Jones]

Brilliant. Yeah, it's the same thing.

[Don Was]

Whatever method works for you, right? Yeah, he was.

[Norah Jones]

He was able to pick it out.

[Don Was]

Can't forget it. Cause he won't remember.

[Leah Rose]

That's a good segue too. To the new. Because I was thinking about McCartney writing yesterday in his sleep. Keith Richards writing Satisfaction in his sleep. And thinking about your new album. I don't know if it's written in your sleep. But maybe it was. Or the point between you said dreaming and sleeping and being awake.

[Don Was]

That's it. Yeah. That moment right when you're falling asleep. I had all these ideas, and I would just get up and, like, do a little quiet. I try not to wake up my husband or go to the bathroom and do quiet. Little voice memo of it.

[Leah Rose]

Was that uncommon before this occurrence?

[Don Was]

It wasn't uncommon, but it wasn't as much. I think this was a lot. Maybe it was also kind of pandemicy times. And there was a lot of being awake in the middle of the night at that time and looking at the news and getting, you know, feeling weird and. I don't know.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, but that was like this new album. Did you feel it's time for me to make a new album? Cause you didn't have songs really, right?

[Don Was]

Not really. I think it really came from working with Leon Michaels. I did a song with him, can youn Believe this Song? Because we had worked together. He played horn. He played saxophone on a few of my albums. And then. And we did this song together. Cause I knew he's a producer and I wanted to put out singles. You know, that's like, what I've been trying to do the last few years. Just sort of not overthink things and try to work with people. Low commitment, just one song, you know, and it was fun. And then we ended up making a Christmas album together, and that was really fun.

[Leah Rose]

You guys did a lot of tracks for that, too.

[Don Was]

Yeah. And then when it was done, I said, I miss working together. Should we try to make a real album where there's no, like, rules and no Christmas parameters? And so that's what we decided to do. We just got together whenever we could. This album was different for me in that it was sort of pieced together whenever we were around. So it wasn't like when I made the album with Danger Mouse. I didn't have any material. But we went into the studio for two months together to do it and come up with it. This was just here and there and dribs and drabs. And always short days because our kids were in school. And just, you know, 11 to 2 and. All right, cool. I'll try to come up with some lyrics for that, you know? And it was so fun. He would play drums and I would play piano, and we would just play. And it just felt so good. Yeah.

[Leah Rose]

Reef might have thrived in this 11 to 2 recording window.

[Don Was]

Yeah. Talk about a work day. It was Kind of great. I kind of loved it because he has his own studio. There was no, like, booking. It was just like, hey, what day next week works for you? Tuesday. Can we squeeze in two days? Tuesday and Thursday? Okay, cool. Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

It's still fun to make records.

[Don Was]

It was so fun. And I think from the minute we played, I remember when we did can youn Believe it was just one of the funnest times I've had playing, because it was sort of that time after the Pandemic where I hadn't played with anyone in a year and a half, and I don't think he had either. And it was just like that feeling when you're playing something and then you stop and it's like, oh, yes, that feels so good. You know, it's just like. It's like you're back in college or high school or something. So.

[Norah Jones]

Do you get that when you're playing live?

[Don Was]

Yeah. I mean, you try to. You don't always, but I think that's the goal. And I think playing with people who make you feel that way is the best way. I definitely feel like that when I play with Brian Blade on drums.

[Norah Jones]

Let's talk about Brian. Yeah, I mean, he was on those first sessions with Craig, and he is.

[Don Was]

A Blue Note artist.

[Norah Jones]

And he's a Blue Note artist. And. And he's on a bunch of great Blue Note records, too. He's on Charles Lloyd's new album. He did those records with Wayne. We've got another one coming this year.

[Don Was]

Nice.

[Norah Jones]

No one plays like him.

[Don Was]

No, nobody.

[Norah Jones]

But I've never played with him. What? What's that like?

[Don Was]

He's heaven. Yeah. He doesn't play anything just to play it. He's always listening, and he listens more than anyone I've ever played with. And he's always reacting in the moment to it in a way where, you know, the music just feels so alive. But he's never reacting in a. Like, a bullshit way. It's never wrong, and it's never distracting or. Or. Or busy.

[Leah Rose]

So it's never to assert himself. No, I'm here.

[Don Was]

No, it's never for the wrong reasons. And his pocket is also super deep. Like, his groove is so good.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah. And his dynamics are incredibly incredible.

[Don Was]

Real quiet.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

And then explodes.

[Don Was]

Yeah. Yeah. He's like a sound person's nightmare, but also it's a dream to watch him.

[Norah Jones]

So when I saw you play with Wayne and Brian, and it was Patatucci.

[Don Was]

And it was Jason Moran playing the Blue Note Anniversary. Right.

[Norah Jones]

That was. I was sitting on the side of the stage. And I just remembered, like, I felt like I was experiencing some kind of cosmic truth and I wasn't tripping. Yeah, this is like. I got a little scared because it was like hyper real, the things you guys were doing. And how'd you feel about that?

[Don Was]

That was amazing. I also. It was the first time I played with Brian in a long time. I hadn't actually seen him in a while. He played on my first two records, but we sort of drifted and he's hard to pin down. He's always so busy. I definitely hadn't talked to him and hadn't seen him in a long, long time, like years. And I hadn't played with him and so. And to play with Wayne again, I think I had already played with Wayne and Herbie on a Joanie thing, but to play with Wayne and Brian together and then Patatucci and then Jason Moran. And Jason, I think organized it. Yeah, it was so fun. I did feel a little naked because I wasn't playing, but I also didn't feel like I could play with those guys, like hang with them. And it was just so fun.

[Norah Jones]

But you could because you did. Shortly thereafter.

[Don Was]

I have to credit Jason Moran for that. He emailed me after that. He's like, you know, you should make a record with Wayne or you should like record with Wayne. And it was so like a little push that I. I needed. I wouldn't have probably asked Wayne to play in that record if Jason hadn't encouraged me. And then to have Brian and play with him again was so special. And yeah, it was sweet.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, it's a good night.

[Leah Rose]

What was recording with Wayne like?

[Don Was]

It was my friend Sarah and I were talking about it the other day actually. I was so nervous for it and a little under prepared. I didn't have that many songs. We had two days in the studio and I knew we weren't gonna like do something a million times with Wayne, but I wasn't really sure of what was gonna happen. And we did. We did a song. We did a Horace Silver song that I've recorded before, but I just loved and I knew he played with Horace at some point and.

[Leah Rose]

Peace, right?

[Don Was]

Yeah, the song Peace, which is just a such a heavy song and I don't remember if it was the first one we did, but. Well, first I went to Wayne's house in. In LA for an afternoon and he just played me a bunch of stuff and talked about his. He showed me his comic books that he made when he was a kid. Did you See those? That was an incredible day.

[Leah Rose]

Wow.

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Norah Jones]

Show you the action figures.

[Don Was]

Yep. He showed me the action figures and he told me about watching Fox News and playing soprano sax just angrily and like writing while he was watching Fox News. And like, I mean, that was crazy. It was an amazing afternoon.

[Norah Jones]

He's. He was one of a kind.

[Don Was]

Yeah, he was really one of a kind. And so we had had that afternoon, which was really nice. And we were playing this song, peace. And I play an intro and it's, you know, Patatucci on bass, Brian on drums, me, and then Wayne, and we're all in the same room playing the intro to piece. And then I sang. And he still hasn't come in. I'm like, singing. I'm like, well, he hasn't come in, but I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna enjoy this verse and not worry about that. Come around to the second verse. He still didn't come in. I'm like, I wonder if he's enjoying this. But then. But I wasn't like over ruminating on it because it would have taken me out of it. And then as soon as we get to like, the solo, I'm like, I guess maybe I'll solo. I wasn't sure. And then he just like, he came in and. And I think the thing I learned, and I've noticed that Brian is like this as well. They don't really play until they have something to say. You know, there's times where Brian is sat out on half a tune and I'm like, I guess he's not gonna play. But then he comes in and it's like, perfect entrance, you know, it's like. It's right.

[Leah Rose]

So that is an incredible thing about Wayne is playing. Can be like me and Don were talking, but before, I didn't realize. It took me a long time before I realized Wayne was playing on that record. I mean, I knew the sax sounded gorgeous. And then when you see the crowd, you're like, oh, fuck, that makes sense. Of course it's Wayne, but, you know, he doesn't. He doesn't oppose. He's not.

[Don Was]

It's.

[Leah Rose]

It's like a really. It's gorgeous and it's amazing, but it's humble and it's. And hey, there's no reason for it to be humble.

[Don Was]

It's just spiritual. I think it was just such a spiritual practice, probably to him. I mean, that's how he went about it.

[Leah Rose]

Spiritual is the right word for it.

[Don Was]

Yeah, he's not coming in, in the intro just because he's supposed to. He was listening. He wasn't. I don't even think he wasn't coming in because he didn't like it. I think he was just listening to see what was happening, you know? I don't know. It's cool. That was one of the cooler things I've got to do.

[Norah Jones]

It's awesome. Yeah. And it's wonderful, too. It really, really holds up.

[Leah Rose]

Are you ever tempted to do a larger project that really, like. That's more in the jazz idiom, like, more squarely in that. Like, in your jazz snob roots?

[Don Was]

You know, I'm not, and I feel like that album sort of was that for me, but also, it also wasn't completely all the way there either. But it was more than. More than my first record. I'll say. I don't. I still don't think my first record sounds like a jazz album to me completely. And so I think. I think if I were bored and thinking about what can I do, maybe I would decide to do something like that. But I'm always finding other stuff that's inspiring. And if that's inspiring, it's because I'll find something that inspires it. I think not. Not thinking, let's do a jazz album, let's do a country album, let's do. You know, I just. I guess I don't think that way.

[Norah Jones]

When you're touring, do you have room to approach a song with beginner's mind every night?

[Don Was]

Yeah. Especially when I started without. Without the band, and I'm just piano and drinking it. I. I do. Especially playing with Brian, because I know we'll just go to wherever it goes. And there's some arrangements we've found that way that we stick to a little more and then some that are different. Sometimes a song is really dynamic in the set, and then I'll put it in the set the next night, thinking like, okay, this is where the set will get big. And it's like tiny. The song is tiny. I'm like, well, that set was a little sleepy in that section, but I prefer it that way. Not knowing.

[Norah Jones]

It's the. I think it's the best thing, man.

[Don Was]

It's so fun.

[Norah Jones]

So much.

[Don Was]

Well, it's. It's where. It's where you get that feeling that from high school, where you're just like, oh, my God, music is so fun, you know?

[Norah Jones]

Are you still finding new things, like just a different way to move your finger to a different angle or something that. That will open up a whole new universe of notes?

[Don Was]

Yeah, sometimes. And sometimes, like, I'll use the whole piano, which I never used to. I wouldn't think to go way low or way high. And actually, back to your question, though, I would say about doing, like, a jazz album. I think even though I started out interpreting songs, and I love doing it, and I think I found a lot more inspiration from writing in the last few years. And so it's more based on what I'm writing and what's inspiring me in that way than trying to make something sound a certain way.

[Leah Rose]

I think on your new album, which we were talking about before, I really love it. And the joy you were explaining and making it. I feel like you can really hear it when you were writing the songs. Thinking of maybe like a staring at the wall or something. How it sounds on the record. Is that how you heard it, writing it?

[Don Was]

That one in particular was. There's nothing to it. It's just him on drums and me on guitar. Just like, time of our lives, going as fast as we can. He's like, we need something fast. Let's try something fast. I was like, okay. And then I just started playing. He started playing, and we were just like, going. Trying to keep up with it. And then it was so fun. And then we just added words and, like, harmonies, and that was it.

[Leah Rose]

Sounds like nothing I've heard before.

[Don Was]

Yeah, I like that one a lot. That's one of my favorites. And it's not like anything else on the record.

[Leah Rose]

It's not. It's not like anything really at all.

[Justin Richmond]

I don't know. It's.

[Leah Rose]

It's.

[Norah Jones]

That's a hard thing to achieve, you know, to do something that works on a basic level, that makes people respond emotionally, but doesn't sound like anything else. I think that's the highest thing you can aspire to.

[Leah Rose]

Is there anything from the new album you could play?

[Don Was]

Sure. What do you want?

[Leah Rose]

Could you do Paradise?

[Don Was]

Oh, yeah. I could try that one. I mean, we'll miss the drums, but you can imagine a backbeat. Yeah.

[F]

La la la la la la la.

[Don Was]

La la la la la la la.

[F]

La la la la Take me back to paradise I could make the sacrifice I'm trying to save you what else is there left to learn? Watch But I'm waiting It's true I watch you fall I try to stop Waiting for the pain to drop and now I've got to let you go again Although I know I never wanted this to end I know it's time to let you go Find a place to calm your mind I Take yours and you take mine I'm begging you, please Conversations Bleeding hearts are always beating I'm down on my knees I watch you fall I try to stop Waiting for the pain to drop I know I've got to let you go again all the whole I never wanted this to end I know it's time to let you go oh la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la.

[Don Was]

I.

[F]

Watch you fall I try to stop.

[Don Was]

Wa.

[F]

To let you go again oh, I never wanted this to end I know it's time to let you go.

[Don Was]

It'S so high.

[Norah Jones]

That's great.

[Don Was]

I didn't imagine singing that high today.

[Norah Jones]

Wow. You sound cool. And it lends a whole new reference point for the song, a whole different perspective on it here when you sing it like that.

[Don Was]

Thanks. I didn't know how. How that was going to go.

[Leah Rose]

You're all over the keyboard, too. It's great.

[Don Was]

That's a loud piano.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, but it's wild how it's a great example of how it's one connected thing, the piano playing.

[Don Was]

Yeah. And I forgot there's some harmonies in there. I tried to catch it with the piano, but I forgot some of them. But it was cool. Some of them worked out.

[Norah Jones]

Really reminds me of Aretha when she played piano.

[Don Was]

Well, she's one of my favorite piano players. I think before I even knew that was her on the piano and all those recordings. She's always been my favorite, you know, one of the best feels out there.

[Norah Jones]

You know, we came this close to having her signed to Blue Note.

[Don Was]

Really?

[Norah Jones]

Yeah. And I went to Detroit a couple times. I'd known her, you know, and. And I said, but you gotta play piano. We're just gonna do a thing, like maybe have Jerry Jamot playing bass and Narada playing drums, and maybe someone playing organ or guitar, keeping it real basic. And everything would stem from her piano playing. We're going to do it in Detroit so she didn't have to travel and she got sick.

[Don Was]

Oh, so she was into it.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, she was totally into it. And I was texting. I still have my text chain. I couldn't believe I was texting with Aretha Franklin.

[Don Was]

That's amazing. Oh, I wish that could have happened.

[Norah Jones]

Me, too.

[Leah Rose]

But I'm glad you at least try. I'm glad someone was thinking about that with her.

[Don Was]

Yeah. I find that some of your favorite artists, you see them grow and do all these amazing things, and then as they get older, it gets there. It's like she didn't play piano on everything anymore. And you miss that, that basic core of, like, what you loved, you know?

[Leah Rose]

Her playing reminds me of, like, when I hear. Like, I can always tell, like, Stevie on drum. When Stevie plays drums, it's so unique and it matches almost his voice, like, the way he sings.

[Don Was]

Oh, man.

[Leah Rose]

And Aretha's same, like the. Just the rhythm in her playing just matches perfectly the way she sings. And.

[Don Was]

Yeah, it's the pocket. You can't imitate that if you're somebody else.

[Norah Jones]

And the church thing, too, you can hear. It's so. It's so churchy and it's so soulful. Man. What do you think is the best written song that you've ever heard?

[Don Was]

I don't know. A million of them.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, I mean, what.

[Leah Rose]

Yeah, what comes to mind?

[Don Was]

Okay, what comes to mind, a song I always have loved is that song Heartache by Lowell George. And there's a version of it on. Thanks. I'll lead it here, which is fine. But there's a version of it floating around there with Linda Ronstadt, like a demo of it. That is the version I'm thinking. And it's just a great song. And the way the chord structure is, it kind of turns around and the key center changes, and it's weird. And it's just one of those songs.

[Norah Jones]

Play it.

[Don Was]

Let's see if I know it. Oh, Ron. Key.

[F]

Well, I'm.

[Don Was]

Oh, no, I don't want to do that.

[F]

Well, I'm here out of love and I'm feeling no pain. But I know you heartache, you stand in my way. There's no use in wishing. Cause I ain't satisfied. I'm fit to be a misfit when you're at my side. Heartache. Find another place to be. I'm tired of being your best friend. Look to another for your companion. And when you do my pain. Where you land where there's nowhere at all. Where I'm feeling no pain. My body is sickly, my mind is insane. I call on you, hide to come show me how. Cuz I can't get no lower Than the hole I'm in now. Heartach. Finding another place to be. I'm tired of being your best friend.

[Don Was]

Pain.

[F]

Look to another for your companion. And when you do my pain. Willing.

[Justin Richmond]

You're right.

[Don Was]

I usually play it on guitar.

[Norah Jones]

Oh, that's beautiful. That's really nice.

[Don Was]

It's a sweet one, right?

[Norah Jones]

Yeah. Beautiful song.

[Don Was]

But do you see how it changes keys?

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, it's weird. I wasn't paying attention.

[Leah Rose]

I didn't even notice that.

[Don Was]

Well, like, that's what's cool about it. It's not it doesn't seem like something that was overthought. But it goes, it starts there and then goes to the minor five and then to the and then it kind of stays there and then that becomes comes the center and then it goes back to the sort of bridgy chorus and it goes back to E flat.

[Leah Rose]

Anyway, Nerd, when did you discover that song?

[Don Was]

Nerdtown? I discovered it maybe probably around this time I was making my second record. I think Kevin Bright, who played on my guitar on my first record, turned me on to Lil George, that album. Thanks. Hell eat it here. And then somehow we found a bootleg of that. Linda. So in the demo that I love, it's Lowell and Linda singing harmony on the whole chorus. And it's just the prettiest thing ever.

[Norah Jones]

I bet.

[Don Was]

Yeah. I just love Linda.

[Leah Rose]

Thank you so much for cool.

[Don Was]

Thank you.

[Norah Jones]

Yeah, thank you so much. That was a lot of time and very forthcoming. It was beautiful.

[Justin Richmond]

Thanks to Norah Jones for sharing her incredible story with us. You can hear her new album Visions, along with our other favorite Noah Tracks on a playlist atbrokenrecordpodcast.com I also want to thank Don Was for going on.

[Leah Rose]

This excursion with me.

[Justin Richmond]

We have four more episodes coming, so.

[Leah Rose]

Stay tuned for those.

[Justin Richmond]

You can also watch the full video of this interview and other recent [e-mail] broken record podcast and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolameck. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for $4.99 a month. Look for Pushkin plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.