Norah Jones on Bluenote??

Marakanetz-clearly she can sing and you as a Can fan should know that fitting someone into a specific box has no merit.
You really believe if you took a straw poll that Helmut from Can would be considered a better singer?
If you don't like her move along,everybody has different value systems.
Grammy Awards?
Who cares?

To me any vocal of any style is the one who has a controll over the music or to say more precisely over the song. It's a person that has maximum "synergy" over lyrics voice and music.
Norah has only grade 4 out of 10 in all of my criterias.

Figure Irmin Schmidt, Karoli, Suzuki and certainly Malcolm Mooney.
Figure also terrible one such as John Wetton(King Crimson).

All of these terrible vocals unites one thing: none can sing better a specific songs than they can. Who can sing better "In the Distance Lies the Future" than Malcolm Mooney? Chris De Bourgh? Pete Gabriel? Phill Collins?...

Can you spell any song that only Norah would sing its best??
Listening any song she sings, I just picture someone else on her place such as Krall, Willson or Schuur instead as much better match.

Hmmmm, I really don't see the link between cheap labour and Norah Jones on Blue Note. What I do see and hear is a young musician/singer who is at the beginning of what could be a long, diverse and successful career. Her abilities are still evolving and, hopefully, improving, and it will likely be many years before she reaches her peak as a vocalist or pianist.

Onhwy61 is SO RIGHT about jazz not being static, it is a continually evolving, shape-shifting genre with many idioms. We could argue until we're blue in the face about whether Norah's music really is jazz, but at the very least it incorporates a jazz influence, among others.

Dilettante is defined as - 1 : an admirer or lover of the arts 2 : a person having a superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge. Now call me crazy, but that does not seem to fit here. Norah is quite clearly a musician, and insofar as music is an art form, I would have to say she is also an artist. The fact that one does not like her voice or music does not a dilettante make her. As to a song that only she can sing: Come Away With Me.

Disclaimer - my brother the jazz musician (double-bass) has had occasion to converse with Ms. Jones and finds her to not only be very down-to-earth, but also knowledgeable about things musical, in addition to being quite proficient on the piano.

Will feature guests Garth Hudson, Levon Helm & Dolly Parton, should be interesting IMO, I'll be there.

Mghcanuck,
The link is very simple:
To compare with Britney's repertoire Norah's one is "too expencive". To compare with the rest of Blue Note repertoire seems to be "too cheap". To compare with compeeting during Gramys Bruce Springsteen, well, it's very close + or - imho.

The cheap in terms of investment to create a song or music, investment in terms of level of sophistication towards the vocal perception peak or capabilities. In most cases the cheap investment creates the largest profit as all of the commercial music had prooven. Some exeption is Freddy Mercury.

You're contraversing yourself saying that she's on developmental stage. Certainly there's no doubt that she will become better and better and will probably lean towards serious sophistication that will finally suit the Blue Note repertoire...

I've no jazz-musician brother, but cruising arround NY jazz and music clubs large or small along with large performing arts centers I'm sure I can distinguish vocal qualities. To me she's still just a nice girl who's part of commercial promotion of jazz.

If jazz(or any kind of real music) will be promoted to the commercial levels, I may positively agree that it will be much harder for cheap pop artists dive onto the waves of the show biz.