Norah Jones might be a multiplatinum, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who is apparently so talented she's adding “actor" to her professional repertoire by making her debut in Wong Kar-wai's “My Blueberry Nights." But that doesn't mean she's not still in touch with her roots. Last night Jones played a midnight show at New York City's Living Room to help celebrate the club's 10th anniversary. Jones got her start there, and last night it was as if she had never left.
Before coming to a cineplex near you, and racking up millions in album sales, Jones was like any other struggling New York City musician who wanted to be heard. Well, almost like any other: her father is sitar legend Ravi Shankar, after all, but she still made the rounds, playing at small clubs before she signed a record deal. One of those small clubs was a Jewish cultural center on Manhattan's Upper West Side called Makor, where, if you can imagine, she had to play above the din of conversation of the uninterested crowd. It was as if she was the entertainment in the lounge of a Howard Johnson's.
She wasn't Norah Jones, Megastar then--her massive debut wasn't released until 2002-- just a chick at the piano playing a few songs ("Come Away With Me" and “Don't Know Why" among them). But another spot was the aptly named the Living Room, a former fried chicken shop, where she and a gang of musician friends would get their share of the donations when it came time to pass the bucket for the entertainment.
It was the music venue equivalent of “Cheers," where everybody did know her name, because the venue was a hub in New York City's tightly knit musical community, where friendships were formed over similar tastes in music and beer--and not, say, MySpace and Facebook. The cozy vibe was exactly what you'd expect from a place with that name: intimate and casual, a handful of tiny tables and chairs, Christmas lights for ambiance. And Jones at the piano, with her friends--musicians like Jesse Harris (who wrote the superhit “Don't Know Why," among others on her debut) and bassist and songwriter Lee Alexander, who was playing with her then and still does.
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