I LOVE Norah Jones. Big fan! I love her soulful, cool sound. She’s a woman who’s voice has so much texture, she just seems wise beyond her years. Plus? LOVED her appearance on Sesame Street from years ago. So when offered a chance to review her newest release, I was very excited.

The Fall, Jones‘ fourth album, finds Jones working with a new group of peeps “including Jacquire King, a noted producer and engineer who has worked with Kings of Leon, Tom Waits, and Modest Mouse among others. Jones enlisted several songwriting collaborators, including Ryan Adams and Okkervil River ’s Will Sheff, as well as her frequent partner Jesse Harris,” according to her promotions staff.

The cd on the whole is very mellow. My favorite song was “Chasing Pirates”. The song is fun, sassy. And “Man Of The Hour” is funny and cute. (How can you resist a love song  to a dog?) But a lot of the songs sound the same. Same guitar sounds, same sort of tempo, same types of vocals which convey the same sort of tone or mood. Not to say the Cd is bad. But I prefer when an artists mixes things up a bit. Give me some attitude in one song, something profound in another, something light and fun to dance to in a third, something smooth or haunting in the next.

But what I do know is that this is a great cd to play while you’re chilling out at the end of the day, or in the car to calm the kiddies. My son is very sensitive to music. (As am I.) A soothing melody centers him. So this is one of those cd’s I’ll be keeping in the car.

The impression I get of Norah is that she’s a mellow, sweet, genuine chick. So I like that the personality of the album seems true to the multiple Grammy award winner.

Tour dates have been announced recently. The 36-city tour kicks off March 5, 2010. Ticketing information is available at http://www.norahjones.com/tour/.

According to her promotions peeps, “Jones has premiered several remixes from The Fall earlier this month. On December 1, RCRD LBL (http://rcrdlbl.com/) will present “That’s What I Said (The NYC Remix by Adrock and Mike D).” On December 2, Stereogum (http://stereogum.com/) will present “Chasing Pirates (Santigold and Snotty Remix).” On December 3, Artist Direct (http://www.artistdirect.com/) will present “Chasing Pirates (Droogs Remix),” which was created by a remix collective that included Beck.”

These remixes will be released digitally (as well as on vinyl) January 12, 2010.

Just so you know: I received the cd in exchange for writing a review.