Norah Jones & Marian McPartland - Tanglewood Jazz Festival, Tanglewood, Lenox, MA, 8-30-2003

Here, I continue my campaign to show that Norah Jones's musical career is much more interesting than her hit singles and albums would indicate. This shows her getting much more acoustic and jazzy than usual, as she plays songs from the Great American Songbook with a piano as the only musical backing.

This technically is a concert recording, but you'd never know it. The audience noise has been removed so thoroughly, and the sound quality is so excellent, that it should be considered more like a long in studio radio performance. Also technically, Jones plays all the songs with famed pianist Marian McPartland, but it's hard to tell. McPartland certainly never sings, and since they're both playing pianos, it's hard to tell who is playing what. The bottom line is it sounds like Jones plus a piano to me.

I've added five bonus tracks at the end, but it would be impossible to tell unless you closely examine the mp3 tags (or read this). The bonus tracks come from around the same time, and also were done just with Jones and McPartland on piano, so the sound is exactly the same. The only difference is that on the main recording, Jones does all standards from the pre-rock and roll era, while on the bonus tracks she does a couple of the songs she made famous, including her big hit "Don't Know Why."

It's interesting to hear her do her songs in such a stripped down fashion, but mainly this is about hearing Jones perform the standards in her unique style. It's a mystery to me why she hasn't actually released an album like this yet.

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 Mean to Me (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
02 Lover Man (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
03 Walking My Baby (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
04 Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
05 Melancholia (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
06 Tenderly (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
07 Summertime (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
08 Easy Living (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
09 A Foggy Day in London Town (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
10 In the Dark (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
11 Comes Love (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
12 Don't Know Why (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
13 Peace (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)
14 The Nearness of You (Norah Jones & Marian McPartland)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15603480/NorahJ_2003_TnglewoodJazzFestivl__8-30-2003_atse.zip.html

The cover shows McPartland and Jones over a piano. But I don't know where and when it was taken. But it's most likely from 2002 or 2003, since that's when they collaborated.