Does She Make You Happy?

It's about time I got around to writing a quick post on Norah Jones and her most recent record, ...Little Broken Hearts.

"Solo artist" is not a particularly meaningful term these days. If you look at the credits for a Christina Aguilera record, it will be immediately clear to you that you are not just getting "Christina Aguilera" on that record: you are also getting a team of professionals that in various ways has created the record's music. Moreover, Aguilera may have a very impressive set of pipes but she doesn't play any musical instruments. In contrast, from Not Too Late onward Norah Jones has written or co-written - with no more than one collaborator in all cases but one - all of the songs on her records, and she also plays a simple keyboard and/or guitar part on the overwhelming majority of those songs. Jones may not be the musical polymath that, say, Todd Rundgren or Brian Eno is, but she definitely counts as a bona fide solo artist.

The only Norah Jones song that I can recall ever hearing on the radio is "Don't Know Why" from Come Away with Me, Jones' 2002 debut - here's hoping that the commercial radio situation where you live is not as dreadful as it is here in New Orleans. On the basis of "Don't Know Why", and also because she records for Blue Note Records, Jones is sometimes labeled a "jazz artist"; if this is your conception of Jones, then ...Little Broken Hearts will throw you for a loop.

Much has been written about ...Little Broken Hearts' foray into indie rock and how different it is from Jones' other records, and several of its songs do in fact brim with indie artsiness, namely, "Good Morning", "After the Fall", "Travelin' On", and "Miriam". However, if you've heard The Fall, Jones' previous record, then you know that there is a sparse Johnny Cash-ish country side to what she does, and there is some of that on ...Little Broken Hearts - indeed, my two favorite tracks on the record, "She's 22" and "4 Broken Hearts", are in this vein.

The aforementioned "Miriam" was chosen for the record's second single, a very interesting choice in that lyrically its narrator confronts 'the other woman' and ultimately decides to kill her - I'm gonna smile when I take your life - who knew that our Norah was a locked-and-loaded kind of gal?

In sum, if you like Jones' traditionalist side - if you are looking for songs like "My Dear Country" and "Back to Manhattan" - then you will probably be disappointed by ...Little Broken Hearts, but if you like her country side and are willing to let her push the musical envelope somewhat, then ...Little Broken Hearts is the record for you.

Jeffrey Scott Beck, 1962-2012

I was horrified to learn from the July/August 2013 issue of the University of Pennsylvania's Gazette alumni magazine that Jeffrey Scott Beck, one of my graduate school contemporaries, died last year. I tracked down an obit for Jeff here; the obit writer doesn't say what Jeff died from, but given his age (49) and that he passed away ... with his wife, his sister, his mother-in-law and close friends at his side, I suspect that the Big C was to blame.

Jeff and I both arrived at Penn in the Fall of 1984. Although we didn't take any first-year classes together, we were co-TAs for Chemistry 4 and Chemistry 54 during the Spring 1985 semester and during the afternoon lab sessions we chatted from time to time - I still have my copy of the Chem 4 textbook for that semester, the fourth edition of Chemical Principles. (The third Chem 4/54 TA, Deanna Johnson, left Penn shortly after her first year and I have no idea what happened to her.)

I can't claim to have known Jeff well, but I do have a few random remembrances of him that are worth jotting down.

• Jeff and I were both semi-regular patrons of the sadly long-gone Audrey's Pit Barbecue on 40^th Street.

• Jeff was a fan of female singer-songwriters - I remember him being pleasantly surprised that I had even heard of Joan Armatrading, Kate Bush, and Lene Lovich, let alone that I had heard any of their songs.

• Jeff was also a big Pink Floyd fan. He paid $400 to a scalper for two tickets to see Pink Floyd when it was touring for The Wall in 1980 or so - "During 'Mother' you could hear a pin drop," he informed me.

• Perhaps the strangest thing I knew about Jeff was that he loved the Meow Mix Theme: "I like chicken, I like liver, ..."

• I was never shy about telling everyone how much I disliked graduate school, and Jeff assumed that my dislike of graduate school extended to Philadelphia more generally. I corrected him. Actually, Jeff, there are some aspects of Philadelphia that I really like. His eyes lit up slightly. It's just that Penn isn't one of them. He smiled broadly.

Rest in peace, Jeff. If there's a heaven, I hope that they're piling the beef brisket, collard greens, and baked beans high for you up there.