Now, she's a mother herself, and Day Breaks being her post-natal album, she's not sure if it's affected her music yet. Jones offers a soul-shaped interpretation of the relatively obscure Don't Be Denied, changing Young's autobiographical lyrics from Canada's Winnipeg to Anchorage, Alaska to reflect a road trip she took with her mother from her home state of Texas when she was 11. Just as her early albums have connected some seemingly disparate dots in the songs they reinterpreted - there's been covers of Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams, Hoagy Carmichael and Tom Waits - the new one stretches from Ellington to Neil Young. I finished singing the verses and then all of a sudden he's just there and it's so beautiful, and I'm just playing under Wayne Shorter, he's four feet away from me, and luckily I was just in the music and I wasn't overthinking it.' 'Wayne doesn't really play unless he's feeling it and I love that about him. 'I basically hired Wayne Shorter's quartet but not Danilo Perez and I'm playing piano. 'I felt comfortable even though in my head I was like 'What am I doing?', she says of the Shorter collaboration. Jones just hums that one, like a dreamy jazz lullaby.

Jones plays piano beneath Shorter's elegant soprano saxophone and his rhythm section on three Day Breaks tracks including Peace and Duke Ellington's Fleurette Africane (African Flower) which closes the album on a meditative note. She's been a fan of Shorter, now 83, whose history extends through Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis and Weather Report, since she discovered and started playing jazz as a teenager. When Blue Note Records celebrated 75 years of being America's pre-eminent jazz label in 2014, you can bet the 45 million albums bought by Jones fans helped buy a lot of cake.īut the anniversary show also helped the singer-pianist get her jazz groove back after she sang with veteran saxophonist Wayne Shorter and his quartet.

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