Arif Mardin is a mover and shaker in the music business, but at age 10, he was the one being shook. "My father was manager of a Turkish bank in Alexandria, Egypt," Mardin said. "In 1942 we were there; Germans would bomb the city. We would go down to the shelter, and at one point, famous [Field] Marshal Rommel's army was a few miles away—the famous Battles of El Alamein. I remember those vividly."

Mardin survived and went on to work in New York for Atlantic Records, enjoying one of the most illustrious behind-the-scenes careers in the music business. He helped to create such hits as Roberta Flack's "Where Is The Love," Aretha Franklin's "Respect," Average White Band's "Pick Up The Pieces," the Bee Gees' "Jive Talkin?" and the Rent original-cast soundtrack, among many others. He also has produced plenty of jazz, including platters for Charles Lloyd, Eddie Harris, Sonny Stitt, Freddie Hubbard, Max Roach, Herbie Mann, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Regina Carter and, most recently, Dianne Reeves' A Little Moonlight for Blue Note Records.

Also for Blue Note, Mardin in 2002 worked his magic for an unknown singer and pianist from New York by way of Texas. The result was Norah Jones? Come Away With Me, which earned Mardin four Grammys, including for Producer of the Year, bringing his collection to 11. Currently Mardin is working on Jones? follow-up disc as well as his memoirs, beginning with his birth in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1932; through his years at Berklee College of Music in Boston on the Quincy Jones Scholarship; and detailing his storied career at Atlantic, from 1963 to 2001. Today he works for EMI, which owns Blue Note.

I spoke with Mardin by phone a few days after the Northeast blackout, talking about the "lost" Norah Jones album, the place of jazz in top-40 music and how a hardcore jazz-snob got turned on to rock.

All About Jazz: You produced Norah Jones? Come Away with Me. Did you expect Jones? breakthrough success in a marketplace that seems more dominated by quick-hit teen pop and hip hop?

Arif Mardin: No. We were so proud of the album, and we went with the flow. We were hoping for some modest sales, and then look out for the next album, build the artist, but—this heartfelt music reached so many people, especially after 9-11. Maybe we have awakened sort of an untapped segment of the audience who actually—rather than download—go to the store and buy records. When I go to Norah Jones concerts, you have 10-, 12-year-old, young people to 80-year-old grandmas. It's just an incredible phenomenon.

AAJ: Was it your idea to have [guitarist] Bill Frisell play on the disc?

AM: No. The story of the album is that Craig Street, who produces Cassandra Wilson, produced the album, and Bill Frisell was on some of the songs. When Blue Note and Norah thought that the album was too guitar-oriented, which went away from the original demo-feel—more piano and straight-ahead vocal—they asked me to re-record the whole thing, except that some of the songs that Craig produced remained. Bill is playing on one of them.

AAJ: What was the original conception of the album; how did the two versions differ?

AM: The original demos were like the album which is out now. It was sparse and piano-oriented. But the album that was not used was a lot of guitars.

AAJ: So there's a whole alternate guitar-album out there somewhere?

AM: Right [laughs].

AAJ: Is that ever going to see light?

AM: I don't think so.

AAJ: Do you consider Jones a jazz artist?

AM: Yes, especially in spirit. I mean "The Nearness of You" is fantastic—a jazz ballad. She does a Duke Ellington song, it will be in the [next] album, called "Melancholia," and she wrote the lyrics, fantastic lyrics. She has the spirit also of a jazz album-artist. She definitely is an improviser; I heard her play Bach songs and things like that. She also is at home with folk or countryish songs.

AAJ: Are you working on the new album with her?

AM: Yes, we have started [for Blue Note]. We're going to [record] again in maybe a month or two.

AAJ: You also just produced a Dianne Reeves album.

AM: Yes, she has an incredible album. Her rhythm section [is] Peter Martin on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass and Gregory Hutchinson on drums. Then we have Romero Lubambo on guitar— Brazilian—on a few tracks and Nicholas Payton playing trumpet on "You Go to My Head," just a fabulous duet with Dianne [and rhythm].

AAJ: It sounds like a great band.

AM: They play to enhance the music. They don't want to shine, themselves. The solos aren't long. All the music they played is to support and make songs memorable. I'm known as an arranger and a producer who loves to add stuff, more strings, more horns, and this "less is more." It's fantastic.

AAJ: I understand people didn't expect the success of Norah Jones. Does that change the way you hope to market Dianne Reeves? Do you think she could have a similar breakthrough?

AM: I think this album is going to be very successful. The singing is so direct. I think Dianne definitely is wearing the crown of Sarah Vaughan. This album is so fantastic; her every note, it makes sense. With "Skylark" you feel like you're up there with the birds looking down into the meadows. A great version of "Lullaby of Broadway"—everybody usually goes [up-tempo, but] this is about the sadness of chorus girls. She sings it slowly; it's so beautiful. I mean really, really she outdid herself.

[At] the beginning of summer, she appeared at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. My wife and I and [Blue Note president] Bruce Lundvall, we all went to the concert, and she was singing songs from the album. It was so personal, we were kind of devastated, it was so lovely and feeling.

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