A lovely night with Norah Jones in Los Angeles

It was calm and clear Wednesday night at The Greek when Puss N Boots walked onstage to a decently filled audience. With the headliner, Norah Jones, on the drums, the trio wove through songs from their Sister album and finished with a cover of Dolly Parton’s “The Grass Is Blue”. As the set began, with “Just A Little Bit” from the Begin Again album, The Greek’s immense amphitheater energy transformed and dwindled to that of a small jazz lounge or coffeeshop open mic. As the band approached the end of their set and as The Greek was nearly at capacity, they quipped about “not getting out much” to a big laugh from the audience. Their music was melodically calming and truly Americana, with spurts of country, folk and jazz… a perfect foundation for the headliner.

The audience was ready to be awed and witness true magic.

Norah calmly, yet frivolously walked onstage with her band as true veterans — humbled masters of their craft. I’ve seen a lot of shows where the audience is genuinely captivated and lost in the music, but this was different. We were collectively zoned in and in pure amazement.

We all swayed along to Norah performing newer hit singles, like the 2020 “I’m Alive”, and older hits, like “What Am I to You”, “Sunrise” and “Humble Me” from her 2004 Feels Like Home album. Throughout her set, Norah Jones thanked the crowd for being beautiful. She proudly introduced her trio backing band and coyly joked about how her white polka dots looked too big on the monitor. Next up was “Thinking About You” from 2007’s Not Too Late. After that, the setlist went back to more recent hits like “It Was You” from 2020’s Pick Me Up Off The Floor. We then moved towards faster-paced hits like “Happy Pills” from her Little Broken Hearts.

After a short break, the audience was thrilled to see Norah return to the stage for a two-song encore, including a cover of Danger Mouse‘s “Black” and a rousing closing performance of “Nightingale” off the hit 2002 Come Away With Me album. In closing, as soft-spoken and unpretentious as Norah is in between songs, the music is powerful, consuming and truly speaks for itself. Norah Jones brought down the house and received a well-deserved standing ovation.

Photography by Matty Paster

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