Norah Jones Biography

Musician. Born March 30, 1979 in New York City. The daughter of legendary Indian musician Ravi Shankar, Jones grew up in Grapevine, Texas with her mother. After singing in church choirs and taking piano lessons, she attended Dallas’ Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. After winning Down Beat’s Student Music Award for Best Jazz Vocalist and Best Original Composition, Jones majored in jazz piano at the University of North Texas where she sang with a jazz band called Laszlo.

Two years later, in the summer of 1999, she moved to New York’s Greenwich Village after becoming inspired by local musicians to write her own songs. There, she waited on tables and sang jazz standards in local clubs, often appearing with the funk-fusion band Wax Poetic.

After pulling together her own group, which included Jesse Harris (guitar), Lee Alexander (bass) and Dan Rieser (drums), Jones signed to Blue Note Records in early 2001. Produced by the illustrious Arif Mardin, her debut album, Come Away With Me, won five Grammy awards in 2003, including Best New Artist, Album of the Year and Song of the Year for the hit “Don’t Know Why.”