For those of you who still are interested in this topic, there is something on this (along with a less than glowing review of Norah's new album) in the Feb. 2, 2004 issue of "Newsweek" (the one with John Kerry on the cover).
To quote one passage from the article:
"Last year...jazz sales were up slightly, but only because the pop-ish singer Norah Jones is classified on the charts as a jazz artist, largely because she records on the jazz label Blue Note. If you subtract the 5.1 million copies her debut album, "Come Away With Me," has sold nationally in 2003, jazz lost ground, too [the other is classical, as the article states earlier]. The labels' solution is to sign artists who appeal to broader tastes. Bruce Lundvall, president and chief executive of EMI Jazz and Classics who signed Jones to Blue Note, says the transition is liberating and necessary. And he's delighted to call Jones, whose new album debuts next week, a jazz artist."
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As for the album itself, the "Newsweek" reviewer refers to it as sounding "more like an amateur's debut that a top-of-the-pops follow-up..."
To quote one passage from the article:
"Last year...jazz sales were up slightly, but only because the pop-ish singer Norah Jones is classified on the charts as a jazz artist, largely because she records on the jazz label Blue Note. If you subtract the 5.1 million copies her debut album, "Come Away With Me," has sold nationally in 2003, jazz lost ground, too [the other is classical, as the article states earlier]. The labels' solution is to sign artists who appeal to broader tastes. Bruce Lundvall, president and chief executive of EMI Jazz and Classics who signed Jones to Blue Note, says the transition is liberating and necessary. And he's delighted to call Jones, whose new album debuts next week, a jazz artist."
******
As for the album itself, the "Newsweek" reviewer refers to it as sounding "more like an amateur's debut that a top-of-the-pops follow-up..."