Norah Jones

The debut of Norah Jones, daughter of Ravi Shankar, contains much that is good: In the songs, you feel a longing for love; her soft voice is distinctively reedy; and the instruments, pared back to bare acoustic minimum, bring a living-room immediacy to the music. A couple tunes (“Don’t Know Why” and Hank Williams’ “Cold, Cold Heart”) catch in the craw deliciously and stick there, sweetly hummable. But there’s a lack of conviction: The aches and pains required of midnight music like Come Away With Me feel more supposed than lived, and the instrumentation noodles dangerously close to I’m just so fucking sensitive. Think kd lang light. Unlike lang’s remarkable Ingenue, here we have a debut artist (and given what you could buy, it’s a tasteful choice), the road ahead is steep, and this doesn’t paint a clear picture of how far Jones can go. Still, cranks like me will be listening to her next effort, hoping for the best.