New York, NY (Top40 Charts) On May 8, nine-time GRAMMY winning singer, songwriter, and pianist
Norah Jones will release her seventh solo studio album Pick Me Up Off The Floor on Blue Note Records. The lead single "I'm Alive," a collaboration with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, is out today. The song was co-written by Jones and Tweedy, produced by Tweedy, and features Jones on vocals and piano,
Tweedy on electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and bass, and Spencer
Tweedy on drums. Pick Me Up Off The Floor is available for pre-order now on vinyl, CD, or download.
Jones 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," says Jones. "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."
Sure enough, just as this set of songs blurs sonic colors (blues, soul, Americana, and various shades of jazz) it also swirls the personal and political, specific pain and societal trauma, into one mercurial body. Even the album title's meaning seems to shift. The words "Pick Me Up Off the Floor" at times play as a plea for outside intervention, but in other moments the phrase feels like a bootstraps-style statement of purpose, as on the rootsy "I'm Alive," made in
Chicago with Jeff and Spencer Tweedy, where Jones slashes her own silver lining into the haze of the modern news cycle: "She's crushed by thoughts at night of men / Who want her rights and usually win / But she's alive, oh she's alive."
"Living in this country — this world — the last few years, I think there's an underlying sense of, 'Lift me up. Let's get up out of this mess and try to figure some things out,'" says Jones. "If there's a darkness to this album, it's not meant to be an impending sense of doom, if feels more like a human longing for connection. Some of the songs that are personal also apply to the larger issues we're all facing. And some of the songs that are about very specific larger things also feel quite personal."
The backbone of this album was formed early in an especially fruitful session with her go-to drummer Brian Blade who appears on six of the album's 11 tracks. Other musicians who contribute throughout include bassists
Christopher Thomas, John Patitucci,
Jesse Murphy, and Josh Lattanzi, drummers Nate Smith, Dan Rieser, and Josh Adams, keyboardist Pete Remm, pedal steel guitarist Dan Iead, violinist Mazz Swift, violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Paul Wiancko, percussionist Mauro Refosco, background vocalists
Ruby Amanfu and Sam Ashworth, and the horn section of trumpeter Dave Guy and tenor saxophonist Leon Michels.
"I don't know if I was just in a zone or if this process turned it on, but I've felt more creative in the last year than I ever have," says Jones. By completely rethinking the way she made music, Jones discovered a new wellspring of inspiration, with the fortunate if unexpected result of making an album of tremendous depth and beauty that she was not trying to make.
Jones has announced a Spring-Summer 2020 tour of the U.S. with the legendary singer Mavis Staples. Tickets purchased on the tour include a physical copy of Pick Me Up Off The Floor (*dates noted below). Norah will also be making upcoming festival appearances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (April 26), Beach Road Weekend on Martha's Vineyard (July 24), WXPN's XPoNential
Music Festival (August 2), and the Newport Jazz Festival (August 7). Visit norahjones.com/tour for more info.
NORAH JONES - 2020 TOUR DATES:
April 26 - New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival - New Orleans, LA
May 10 - A Day In The
Vines - Spicewood, TX w/ Patti Griffin, Mavis Staples & Sir Woman
May 12 - Sandia Amphitheater - Albuquerque, NM* w/ Mavis Staples
May 14 - Anselmo Valencia Amphitheater - Tucson, AZ* w/ Mavis Staples
May 15 - Arizona Federal Theatre - Phoenix, AZ* w/ Mavis Staples
May 16 - Fantasy Springs Resort - Indio, CA w/ Mavis Staples
May 20 - Open Air Theatre - San Diego, CA* w/ Mavis Staples
May 22 - Greek Theatre - Los Angeles, CA* w/ Mavis Staples
July 22 - Thompson's Point - Portland, ME w/ Mavis Staples
July 23 - Burlington Waterfront Park - Burlington, VT w/ Mavis Staples
July 24 - Beach Road Weekend - Vineyard Haven, MA
July 28 - Celebrate Brooklyn - Brooklyn, NY* w/ Mavis Staples
August 1 - Bethel Woods Center for the Arts - Bethel, NY* w/ Mavis Staples
August 2 - XPoNential
Music Festival - Camden, NJ
August 4 - MECU Pavilion - Baltimore, MD* w/ Mavis Staples
August 5 - CMAC/Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center - Canandaigua, NY* w/ Mavis Staples
August 7 - Newport Jazz Festival - Newport, RI
*Tickets are bundled with a physical copy of Pick Me Up Off The Floor
