Norah Jones (Photo by Dianne Russo)
Norah Jones has released her seventh solo studio album Pick Me Up Off The Floor, which is out on Blue Note Records. The album features collaborators including Jeff Tweedy and Brian Blade on a set of 11 new songs written or co-written by Norah that speak deeply to the moment.
Tune in to ABC Good Morning America on Tuesday, June 16, to hear Norah perform the uplifting “To Live,” and watch the song’s official video featuring drummer Nate Smith, bassist Jesse Murphy, trumpeter Dave Guy, and tenor saxophonist Leon Michels.
Norah didn’t mean to make another album. After she finished touring 2016’s Day Breaks — her beloved return to piano-based jazz — she walked away from the well-worn album cycle grind and into an unfamiliar territory without boundaries: a series of short sessions with an ever-changing array of collaborators resulting in a diverse stream of singles (with Mavis Staples, Rodrigo Amarante, Thomas Bartlett, Tarriona Tank Ball, and more). But then slowly but surely, the session songs Jones hadn’t released congealed into that very thing she’d meant to avoid — an album. But Pick Me Up Off The Floor is not some disjointed collage. It holds together beautifully, connected by the sly groove of her piano trios, lyrics that confront loss and portend hope, and a heavy mood that leans into darkness before ultimately finding the light.
“Every session I’ve done, there’ve been extra songs I didn’t release, and they’ve sort of been collecting for the last two years,” Norah said. “I became really enamored with them, having the rough mixes on my phone, listening while I walk the dog. The songs stayed stuck in my head and I realized that they had this surreal thread running through them. It feels like a fever dream taking place somewhere between God, the Devil, the heart, the Country, the planet, and me.”
Watch the official music video for “To Live” by Norah Jones on YouTube:
Norah’s much-loved weekly livestream performances on her Facebook page have been bringing solace and joy to her fans and herself alike, as she has performed tributes to Willie Nelson, John Prine, Ravi Shankar, and George Floyd, and played requests for covers and originals from across her catalog.
The New Yorker took notice, publishing the feature Norah Jones’s Extraordinary At-Home Concerts and writing, “The live-at-home approach suits Jones ideally. It foregrounds her directness and natural musicianship, reminding us (as if we could have forgotten) that she is a truly great singer and a stylish pianist… The music is what Jones’s music has been all along: standards, in the broadest sense, and originals akin to the standards, all founded on her economical, artful piano playing and her extraordinary voice.”