Norah Jones stopped by NPR’s Tiny Desk for the first time in her career, leading her to declare, “I finally made it to Tiny Desk” during her set.
The performance found Jones performing cuts from across her discography, consisting of “Paradise,” “Swept Up in the Night,” “Staring at the Wall,” and “Come Away With Me.”
Jones, who also handled piano, was joined by Sami Stevens (glockenspiel, vocals), Sasha Dobson (guitar, vocals), Josh Lattanzi (bass), and Brian Blade (drums).
Check out the performance below.
Last we heard from the pianist and songwriter was in May, when Vevo released Jones’ live performance of “I Just Wanna Dance,” a standout cut from her new album Visions.
Produced by Leon Michels, Visions was met with critical and commercial acclaim. Norah explained, “the reason I called the album Visions is because a lot of the ideas came in the middle of the night or in that moment right before sleep, and this was one of them where you’re half asleep and kind of jolted awake.”
When it came to “I Just Wanna Dance,” Norah said, “I had this idea, again it was just one of those random things that just popped into my mind, and I’d been thinking about it for a long time. This song had another drummer, Homer Steinweiss, who was also part of the Dap-Kings and he played with Amy Winehouse, he and Leon are tight.
“So, we were just playing around with this song and I was on Wurlitzer. The song pretty much just repeats the same thing over and over ‘I don’t want to talk about it, I just wanna dance.’
“Afterwards Leon was like ‘We’ll change some of the lyrics around,’ and I was like ‘No, I just want to dance! That’s it!’ That’s the whole sentiment of the song.
“The part that’s funny about it is that that there is no verse, there is nothing else, so hopefully the groove and the vocals carry it because that was the plan!”
Listen to the best Norah Jones songs on Apple Music and Spotify.