Norah Jones - First Sessions

All Music Guide

Listeners with even a passing familiarity with Norah Jones' fine official debut, Come Away With Me, will be captivated by First Sessions; for an artist making her earliest attempts at studio recording, Jones is remarkably assured and mature on these six cuts, revealing a unique sound and sensibility fully formed long before she signed to Blue Note. The opening "Don't Know Why" is the litmus test: the version here is nearly identical to the rendition on Come Away With Me, its impressive marriage of cocktail jazz and coffeehouse folk already solidified. Likewise, Jones' alluring readings of "Come Away With Me," "Turn Me On," and "Lonestar" anticipate the more robust versions captured on the LP. First Sessions is also worth seeking out because it contains a pair of songs yet to surface anywhere else -- the Jesse Harris original "Something Is Calling You" and more intriguingly, a cover of jazz legend Horace Silver's "Peace."

- Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide