Hi, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with my old pal Jesse Harris.

I'm just playing lo Weuy, I'm just playing lone Weezy.

Hi, Welcome to the show.

I'm Norah Jones, and with me as always is Sarah Oda.

Hello.

Hello.

Our guest today is singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer extraordinaire and og friend.

Yes Jesse Harris.

He's released many albums as a solo artist and several with his instrumental group Cosmo.

And he also has worked with and played with several bands and artists, including Yours Truly me No, I'm pointing to you.

Nobody can see Yours Truly.

Jesse Harris is a friend of mine since I'm nineteen years old, and he worked on my first album with me.

He wrote Don't Know Why, which was my breakout hint and so for me, you know it goes pretty deep.

Yeah, He's written like an unbelievable number of songs.

He's a very prolific songwriter.

He wrote four songs, I think or five songs on my first album.

So yeah, if you know that album, you know his work.

Even if you don't know, you know, you know Jesse has.

A new album, If You Believed in Me, that just came out on November seventh on Artwork Records, and it's featuring an orchestra arranged and conducted by Brazilian composer Mike and Ananias.

And we're going to start this episode with a song I sang with him on that album called Having a Ball.

Stay tuned for a trip down memory lane.

This was fun.

Please enjoy this episode with one of my oldest friends, Jesse Harris.

Is it too late.

For me to call?

I feel so weak?

It hurts to fall.

It hurts to fall.

So can we talk about it?

All?

Wish that we were having wish that we were having a ball.

You had to be.

There.

I supposed it was mean.

It's just a joke.

It's just a joke.

But everything.

Went up and smoked.

Still you are having We say we are having a ball.

Just start we world yesterday.

Isn't it something.

I say?

I let you go, it's time to sleep, I lie, wake.

You count and.

Cheap, I'm kind cheap.

Don't go away the.

Things he keeps.

We say we are having wish that we were having a ball.

We said we will having We said we were having a ball.

We said we would have it.

Wish that we were having a ball, We said we would have it.

Was said we were having a ball.

Awesome.

Yeah island Es.

Hi, friend, Hi, we had to do this to hang out.

Well, you're busy, I know, but you're always gone.

I know that you're French.

Now, I've been around you know, I've been around some.

You spend a lot of time in Paris, though, I do.

That's true because you're French.

Now, yeah, I'm working on it.

I was at the beach yesterday in the day before.

Well, I didn't get a call.

Are you going out?

And Hi?

Welcome to our dynamic.

Have we started?

Oh?

Yeah?

Okay?

Hi, Hi, Now you're all self conscious?

No, I'm ready.

I'm good.

Let's start with a song for fun?

Okay, can we do one of the first songs I used to sing with you, sure, which is is a song that I did record on my first album that people who liked that album love that song.

And also this is the version I used to sing with you.

That's right.

You used to play with the Ferdnandos and you'd be playing at the living room and I'd be there and you just kind of like go like that with your head, you jerk your head, And what was that a signal for for me to come up and sing it with you?

Or am I thinking of not your fault?

No?

No, no, we would do this, We would do this.

Yeah.

But you sang on not your fault on the record.

But this was like one of the first ones, right, so this came out in two thousand and one.

Well, the album came out in two thousand and one, but we must have recorded it in two thousand ors.

Yeah, probably, yeah, but I'm not on the album.

Yes you are.

I am okay, I can't said yeah, okay, So I sing it with you on the album?

Yeah you did?

Okay?

Yeah, and that was like right after I moved to New York.

Yeah, okay, let's do it and then we'll talk about Okay, wait, do you do it in C minor?

Yeah?

Okay.

For some reason, I keep having not your Fault in my head.

I don't know why.

Well, you sang on that too, and you really were yelling.

Remember in the harmonies.

I remember, Okay, do you want to come in with me?

At the intro?

Okay, lines on your face, don't bother me, sit down in my.

Shill, when you dance.

So I can't help myself.

I got to see Gay.

Late in the night.

Well, I'm all alone and I look at the cloud.

Hallo, you're not home.

I can't help myself.

I got to.

See you again.

I had an almost go.

Just to watch you be seen.

I had a lomost gold there just to live in a dream.

But no, I won't go for any of those things.

To not touch your skin is not why I see.

I can't help my.

I've got to see you and game.

I can always go there just to watch you be seen.

I can always go there just to live a.

G But no, I won't go to share with But oh even though, no way.

I get Helmas.

I've got to see I can't helmas.

I've got to see Gay.

All right.

It really brings me back.

I remember I used to do a harmonica, so one Oh did you bring your harmonica?

I didn't.

I didn't remember until this moment.

Oh, that's that's right, because I was like, well, I didn't play piano on it.

And I haven't done that in a while.

But yeah, oh that would have been fun.

That's right, God those days.

Yeah, I was thinking about that on my way here because I used to live her on here, and so I was walking through the old hood and checking things out, and looked at my old place where I used to live, and I saw the old copy shop where I used to make my song books.

And oh, copy shops back before you had a printer in your house.

Yeah, wow, and they used to They would bind the books for me too.

Really, Oh, that's so cool.

So when we did the gigs, I never did any rehearsals, So I just bring the book to the gig, and whoever was on bass that night would just flip, you know, flipped to the song we were doing because they were in alphabetical order.

That's so easy.

That's so jazz of you.

I know, that's such a like jazz musician, jazz singer thing to do.

Have their own book.

That's so cool.

Had a cover too.

I remember You've always been excellent at making charts, so I remember.

That well early on.

Actually remember Ben Street.

Ben Street said you said you got to start making charts.

Really is he the one who made you do?

Yeah, in the very beginning.

Yeah, this is back in the ones.

Before that.

Even Okay, man, that's so cool.

Well, what I met you in Texas in nineteen ninety eight summer.

No, it was April April.

It was right before the summer.

Yeah, and I had the big Cadillac.

I'm sure some people know the story and some people don't, but you were driving cross country with Richard.

Actually, I think we told the story when I did the podcast with Richard.

Oh cool.

Yeah, But I met you and Richard Julian as well as Kenny Wallison and Kurt roseen.

Winkle and Johnson.

And I don't think I ever actually met Mark Johnson on that he was Yeah, he wasn't really around.

So I showed up in my seventy one Cadillac Cidandeville, and you had on like your Jesse hat and your Jesse shirt basically, and your guitar.

That night at the golf course, I showed you guys around town all day and then that night we jammed on the golf course and that was the first time.

Do you remember what song you sang that night?

Maybe?

Was it like Mommy, you've been on my mind?

Yeah, And I was like, that's a great song.

When did you write that or something?

And you're like, yeah, that's a Dylan song.

I was just so I was multiple and you and then I moved to New York and you kept giving me music to listen to, and you, like, you shaped so much of my early taste, you know, which is crazy.

But I mean you already knew a lot of.

Music I did, but I had a lot of gaps, right, yeah, I knew a lot of jazz, yeah, and some country.

You learned Dolly Parton, right, Oh.

Yeah, I mean I knew Dolly and Willie right, but I had a lot of gaps.

I had, like Big Bob Dylan gaps you filled in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then that summer I came to visit you, yep, and well visit New York, right for like a week, right, and I came to the living room to see you play with the Ferdinandos.

Oh my god, right yeah, and I was just like, this is fun.

Maybe I'll leave school.

Maybe I'll drive to school and move up to New York and play for tips.

And I got blamed, yeah, well by my mom until the Grammys, and then you were fine.

She came up and forget you know, it was actually town Hall.

Really yeah, what did she do?

She said, I'm not mad at you anymore.

That's so funny.

So I remember seeing you play with the Ferdinandos, and that was after One's Blue, right, Yes, so you had a band with Rebecca Martin called One's Blue where she did most.

Of the singing pretty much all the sings.

Okay, Yeah, I sang harmonies on just a couple of songs.

Okay.

You do well with with a female singer.

It's like a marriage of your songs.

Yeah, I've been doing it.

It's been kind of that way for a long time.

Yeah, well, you're good at it.

Well.

The cool thing is, you know, the Fernando's Back in the day, like when we did Crooked, we recorded over at Tony SHARE's apartment in Carroll Gardens and uh and it was Kenny Walls and Tony Share.

And now we've made a new record together.

Oh now cool.

Yeah, so it's the first time, you know, I did a record with those guys on it.

But it was like a different concept of an album, and Tony was playing upright, and it was a it was a certain thing.

But this new record is the first time since back in those days that I really feel like the three of us got together and made an album the way we used to except different.

Yeah, but it sounds very different to me.

Yeah, and the album is called paper Flower, Paper Flower, Yeah, but it's just the three of you.

No, it was because they're.

Synthesizers on it, which is totally different from the back in the day.

That's true, that's true.

Yeah, I used to be more of a purist than I am now, but but we kind of combined the old way of recording, like those are all live takes, but now just you know, adding new elements to it, believe it or not.

Some of the sense stuff is Kenny playing.

I believe that.

Yeah, Kenny's really into experimenting with sounds.

And then some friends of mind have over in Paris, like this guy named Julie's Cotton who's in this group called Papoos that who I work with, and he's great a since and doing parts and he really knows you know, old analog sense.

Really well, it's the whole world.

Yeah, and so he did a lot of that stuff that you hear there, and then you know, added other friends.

On there like CJ.

Camery aka Karm plays horns on one tune, and there's a great singer named Anton Jones sings harmonies throughout.

She plays some piano stuff too.

Nice you want to do a song from that.

Sure, Can we do you get a Broken Heart?

Yeah?

Yeah, sure, yeah, I knew you would like that one.

It's very it's very old, very old Ford.

And then we'll ease into the newer.

I mean this is still from the new record though.

Yeah.

I can tell that's Kenny.

It's so great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you get a broken hart, lose you way, fall apart.

There's no one that's going get back on your feet again.

When you're hurting deep inside, you do your best to try to hide, but.

It useless to disgusted.

They all see.

Bing you see, there's no need to let them know.

And it's spatter.

If they go, you can't learn to see to.

Mar why was the flowers as to go.

See?

If you get a broken horse, bow's your way to father part ask nobody.

To help you.

Get back on your feet again?

All right?

Nice, it feels familiar.

They all see beneath your skin.

Yeek, yikes.

It's like what we're always trying to avoid, isn't it until you get older and then you're cool?

Right?

Then revealed too much?

You're cool taking off your skin?

Right?

Wait a second, So you have so many albums, it's crazy.

I know.

Yeah, you've made so many albums.

Yeah, and you've made a lot of different albums, the stuff with Petra Hayden and right John Zorn.

I mean there's so many people.

You have a band, the Cosmos, Cosmo just Cosmo.

Yeah, yeah, it's all instrumental news.

It's with Will Brave, Jeremy Gustin great these days.

James Buckley's playing bass and Kenny plays marimba in the band.

Oh that's fine.

I saw him with his little shorty remember he like custom cut it.

Off right, and he installed the pickup in it.

That's so cool.

Yeah, he keeps it in my house actually, so it gets ends up being used on a lot of recordings.

That's cool.

And you've been recording at home a lot.

Yeah.

When did that start?

That started about oh, six and a half years ago.

Ready, that was a huge, huge development.

For the longest time, I always thought recording had to happen in a studio, that at home it would be a distraction or it wouldn't have the same magic or something.

And I resisted for a long time, and then he actually was through making one of the.

Cosmo records that we recorded at my place, and and my friend who was engineering, said you need to get your own stuff.

And finally I said, okay, fine, if you can help me, yeah, and so he placed an order for me, and then I just gave him my credit card and then yeah, and all this gear showed up, like sixteen boxes of stuff, and I thought, and I called him, I said, what do I do this?

He said, well, you have to get it wired up.

You're like, thanks, guy, Yeah, are you going to help me with it?

And then actually I called Matt.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's been a it's been a life changer.

It used to be.

You know.

If I got together was so one and we wanted to try something, we wrote a song.

Then we had to wait until we could get into a studio.

But yeah, now I you know, write a song, we'll walk across the room and record it, or for myself too, you know, make.

Records or do over dubs or whatever.

Used to be.

You know, if I wanted to change that one little thing in a song, I had to wait.

Yeah, No, I just turned on the studio and start working.

I mean that's kind of how everyone's doing it now, and all the studios are going out of business.

I know it's our fault, which is sad, but like you know, it's also cool that people can just sort of take things into their old own hands.

Yeah.

I still love the experience of going to a studio and working and making an album.

In the studio.

Of course, there is a certain energy that happens there.

Yeah, and there's a lot of money spent doing it.

That's true, that's prohibitive to most people.

Yeah, you know so, But yeah, I feel like all the studios I know that are surviving aren't making money on necessarily.

They find other means, or they have means they do like movies, or.

They do Oh yeah, there's a lot of voiceover work.

Yeah, totally.

All the studios are gone.

I mean in New York.

Yeah, yeah, La still got studios.

There's still studios here.

I don't know what I'm saying, they're not as many, No, tons of close.

How many songs do you think you've written?

Do you know?

Because you're very well documented human as I know you to be.

You're very you make charts, you you're an organized person, so you must know how many songs?

Actually, I've never I've never counted.

Okay, but i'd be curious.

I just on my own records.

I mean, oh, you don't have to do math right now?

Yes, okay, it's just the thought.

It's like it must be in the thousands.

I don't know that thousands sounds a lot.

It sounds like a lot, but I feel like it could be close to a thousand.

That's possible, which is insane.

Yeah, but because when I was just looking at the number of albums, Yeah, so Jesse Harrison, the Ferdinandoz, that's the first album you made with the Ferdinandos, right, because so I remember listening to that album like crazy, but I don't remember listening to Don't Know Why.

When I look at it and I think about all those songs, I don't remember listening to Don't Know Why, because I think it got somehow eclipsed.

Yeah, well in a weird way.

But because we started to play it, maybe and maybe though one a life of its own.

Really, But isn't that weird how the brain works.

It's like I actually was talking to someone who recorded the demos we made at Sony and will Will Garrett, Yeah, and he was saying that he had the original demo of me singing the songs that we recorded of yours for Sony because you had a publishing deal and he's like, I have that that demo and don't know why it's on it.

I was like, no, it's not.

We did it for the first time at Sorcerer.

I just in my mind I had completely rewritten it.

I just forgot.

Yeah, I kind of forgot we did it.

Then I forgot we did it, or maybe I didn't like it or the version wasn't as good.

I don't know.

He didn't play it for me.

But isn't that funny, Like in my mind, I never even knew that song until we did it at.

Sorcer, right, But that's not true at all.

Yeah, I mean we must have been performing it that whole summer.

I know.

I don't know if we performed it before we recorded it really with me singing it.

But again, I'm remembering everything completely backwards.

But I know that I'm you must have performed it, and I must have.

I know I listened to that record, but.

We had a version because Dan had his part.

You know, in my mind, it was just all spontaneous.

I don't know, well, it happened fast, it did happen.

I think it was the first take.

It was the first take, Yeah, and that was it.

But it's just funny to me, like thinking of all that.

Yeah, I must have listened to that record that you made with don't know why on it though a thousand times that summer.

Sure, but we had created our own thing with it.

Yeah, and we were doing you know, we were playing the living room and other venues that summer.

Remember we drove out to uh, Provincetown, No, not Provincetown.

I forget that town's name.

We have to look up the name of that town.

Yeah, we were playing at the living room a lot.

Yeah, Yeah, it happened really fast though, I remember, yes, but I remember, don't know why not being like our a tune from when we were playing live, Yes, until we did the recording, and then it was just such a killer recording.

Not that the tune wasn't great, but it wasn't like the one we were always playing.

I didn't think.

I don't know.

I don't either, and it doesn't matter, but I just like, like, I like to know if my memories are correct, because I feel like you keep good record.

I'm pretty sure that we were playing it because we came in knowing it and it was the first song you wanted to record, or.

One of the first ones.

Interesting, So you definitely had a comfort with it already, I must have.

Yeah.

Do you find that when you play a song too many times that recording it is difficult because you lose the spontaneity?

Well?

I do think that when you write a song, there is something great about recording it as soon as possible, right.

Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's what I find more and more after that, after learning, you know about.

Because you start to change how you sing a song once.

You know, after a while you kind of stray from the melody.

Yeah, and if you could get it in that early moment, you're doing some things that you probably kind of filter out later on.

Yeah, like singing the melody accurately.

Maybe.

Yeah, that's why maybe when you try to re record the song, it had lost some kind of.

Oh yeah, well that version was just so good.

Yeah.

But I find that a lot with with all kinds of songs, I sort of put them away now and then when it's time to record them, I try not to rehearse it too much.

You know, stuff like that.

I think that's smart.

Yeah.

Have you been playing in Paris a lot?

I have?

Yeah, So where do you play locally in Paris?

Like, what's your your spot?

I tend to do a lot of There's this strip of jazz clubs there in Chatelat There's the Duke de Lombard, Bese Sallet, Sunset, Sunside, and they're all kind of in a row of Little Street, and I usually played there.

Unless I'm doing some other thing with, you know, sitting in with an artist I work with, who you know, playing at another venue.

But those tend to be where I do my gigs and they're fun, so fun.

Yeah, does it feel like you have that same thing in New York now?

Not really, not like it used to.

Okay, Yeah, I was curious about that.

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, New York's a little different.

But my question is like, do you really think it's different or are we just not in a new phase in the phase that's doing that.

You know, that's a valid question.

I just I think for sure that what's happened in New York is that it's really spread out.

You got venues in Ridgewood, in Bushwick, in you know, Crown Heights in Bedstye, uh, you know, like they're just all over the place, or Lower east Side, you know, New Blue and so there isn't this sense of there being a spot, like a little area where you can go and bounce around.

To different places, kind of like how the Lower east Side was.

Yeah, yeah, now it's you kind of have to make a choice about your evening now, yeah, and where you're going to spend it.

Yeah, things are just really spread out.

But there are a lot of cool places for sure.

This one song from your album, it has kind of a Parisian vibe.

Oh, paper Flower, I thought you were going to say that.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, you'll play it.

Yeah, okay, let's do it.

You're going to sing with me?

What do you want me to sing?

Harmony or murmur?

I can do whatever you want, okay.

Yes, yes, singing throughout.

I'll chime in, Okay as much as you want.

Okay.

If you give a paper flower, better say it's.

From the hard flowers all.

Fall the pond.

And rite over the time.

I would take a paper flower if you tell me that it's real.

All I need.

Is to feel.

A push from behind.

It's funy.

How will losion.

Soon becomes the truth?

You can't and that the fact inspite.

Of this soul confusion, I don't want to paper flower.

Touch it to a mass chaperns.

When will lie.

Ever how to read the signe?

It's funny how we lose.

So and becomes the truth.

You get and not the fact inspie this soul confusion out of wall of paper flower.

Touch it to latch, it burns.

When will lie.

Ever have to read the sign.

This paper flowers blind?

All right?

That was sweet?

Yeah, that was good.

You sound beautiful.

So fun to play these with you.

Yeah.

I feel like over the years, anytime I need a good acoustic guitar part, I call you.

Yeah, but yeah, you've been doing a lot of your own guitar stuff.

Yeah, that which is cool.

Well, I learned a lot from you and Richard, I feel like early on and you can.

I mean, I can't play acoustic like you.

You can do all the fingerpicky stuff, but I don't practice enough for that.

But I feel like the way I play guitar is basically equal parts you, Richard, Julian and Tony share, except way worse than all of you because I don't practice enough.

But it works.

Yeah, but it works.

You've cobbled together a very useful it's my own thing.

Yeah, Yeah, it's cool.

Yeah, you sounded you guys sounded great at Brooklyn Paramount.

Thanks, it was fun.

Yeah, you and Richard came.

It was nice.

I know it's the old crew.

So what are you gonna do this year?

Are you going to be on tour it all?

Or do you just sort of play?

What are you doing?

Are you sible?

And and yeah, it's a bunch of different things, right, you know.

I'm doing a few shows right now with Kenny and Tony and this keyboard play named Frank Lakrasto.

Oh yeah, he's great.

Yeah, And I just played over in Paris.

I've been going back and forth there and promoting the album and doing some radio shows and stuff like that.

But in terms of touring, not that much.

I do little sporadic shows.

I'm going to go to Japan and do a tour.

Ooh fun, are you playing in Tokyo.

We're gonna play this club called Duo Music Exchange.

Oh cool.

Yeah, when I do my own thing lately, I've been going there, but like I played the Blue Note with Gabby Hartman recently.

But but yeah, it's either like Blue Note or Duo in Tokyo and then but this time we're going to go around.

I think we're going to go to Fukuoka, do you not.

Usually I've done a bunch of tours like that, but sometimes, you know, you go over and you just play Tokyo and come home.

Yeah, so it's way more fun to that's so fun travel around.

Yeah, the bullet train is my favorite.

Yeah.

My favorite snacking in this earth is Japanese train stations.

Yeah, this is the most delicious.

I love it of snacking.

But I'm you know, I'm producing some different artists.

So we're going at you know, at my studio and also in Paris with Smartest over there.

I'm doing my first photography show.

What.

Yeah in Montalk this summer really oh cool?

Yeah?

Where at have you been to the ranch that?

Oh it's cool gallery.

That's cool.

Yeah, what do you guys?

How long you in town?

Another couple of weeks and then go back out.

Cool road through a lot more shows this summer.

About a month and a half, about a month fish know, you know you lose track.

Yeah, but just in the States, outdoor sheds some I.

Kind of had to ask them to stop booking me in certain places in the summer because my crew almost died.

It was just too hot.

Wow.

You know, we played a show in Nashville a couple of years ago outside in probably July.

And it you know, it's like a hundred degrees.

It's just too much for people to work outside all day.

The sequence on my my outfit that night melted, Oh my god, on my neck.

It was weird.

Who it was just very hot and for people to sit outside it was too much.

So I want to hit the hot places, like in the winter, indoors or something.

Yeah, so I've tried to plan it a little.

Oh okay, like cool both.

What about Brazil?

It's ever going to happen again?

God?

Yeah, it's my favorite place to go with you.

I know, you have to always come with me.

I know, we got to do another one.

It's been a long time, not really, has it not?

Well, if you think about the pandemic, it was right before it was in twenty nineteen.

That's true.

Okay, so ye's not so long well yeah, but it is if you erase those two years.

I know.

Yeah, right, you have to adjust.

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to God, that would be so fun.

I know I miss it.

I do kind of think that that is the best audience.

No offense to any other audiences, but they're just so into music.

But they're so vocal with their love, but not Heckley.

You know, it's not like they're just yelling random stuff at you, Like.

Music in Brazil is like food in Italy.

Yeah, it's just deeply ingrained in the culture.

It's so incredible and it feels like you're having a real exchange because they're really getting it or something.

I don't know.

Yep, I do feel like it's probably the best audience.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, let's go all right, all right, cool.

Already?

Growing up?

Did you Okay, one more question because this next this next song we're going to do, I feel like it has hints of stuff that I know you listened to growing up.

So I want to ask you, okay, growing up, Yes, where did you learn music from?

Was it your dad's record collection.

My dad's and my mom and your mom?

My father was a much more avid music listener, he was, right, I remember this, Yeah, okay, Yeah, So I continue to pill for his record collection to this day.

It's great that you have it.

Yeah, So what did he listen to?

Well, he went through phases.

You know, he really loved jazz and and he started listening to jazz in the sixties, so, and he had his favorite artists, Miles Davis and then all the offshoots and Miles Davis, you know, Bill Evans, Cannonball, Adder Lee.

All the good stuff.

Yeah, some Cold Trane.

But he loved the modern jazz quartet.

And then later he got into the seventies, he got super into everything that was popular then.

So he really followed, you know a lot of these artists into their fusion records and then new artists.

Do infusion and that was you growing up.

And then of course we listened to Steely Dan, earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder.

And you know that was Yeah, that's a lot of what I heard growing up.

And my mom.

Also, what did your mom listen to?

She really loved the Police.

She loved the punk rock.

Yeah, yeah, she had more popular tastes.

I guess, okay, I guess the Police.

Yeah, I said punk rock.

But well it became more mainstream.

Yeah, well, I mean they were, you know, they weren't really they became mainstream later and actually, yeah, their last album was their most mainstream before that.

That was the stuff she liked.

Actually, okay, those earlier records.

But yeah, she listened to a lot of like quote unquote cooler kind of stuff, you know, and uh, and then I just started listening to music on my own.

And of course I went through many different phases.

When did you what was your first phase of playing?

I started the piano when I was ten, Okay, lessons, traditional.

Piano lessons, classical practicing, scales and arpeggios, and I hated it and I didn't practice same and I was I was, you know, music I guess came easily to me, and so I wouldn't practice, and then I'd show up for the lesson and I would do well at the lesson.

My teacher would say, Jesse, if you just practiced, you really could do a lot better.

And I'd say, yes, I know, I'm going to do it, and then I wouldn't do it.

And finally, after four years, you know, I stopped.

But I still had this desire to play music, and so I started playing harmonica, you know, just going around with a harmonica, playing with people before the guitar.

Before the guitar.

I did not know that, yeah, And so I would buy I would go you know, like sixteens, seventeen years old and New York City and so I started going around, you know, I buy all the diatonic harmonicas and all the keys and play with friends who played guitar.

Okay.

And there was a guitar in my closet which my mother had found because she moved to California for several years and when she came back, the people she sub letter places to left a guitar there and that was my first guitar.

Said I'm going to learn some Bob Dylan songs and so, you know, and Neil Young songs, and so I started.

I bought some songbooks and learned the chords out of the books at like seventeen yeah, okay, and that.

You know, and then started writing songs almost immediately immediately.

Did you feel did you think I want to be a songwriter?

Did you think that way?

Because I remember the first time I met you and Richard, it was the first time I'd ever met anyone who was a songwriter, And in fact, I said, what do you guys do?

What do you guys do?

And you said, we're songwriters, so definitively, and I never thought of that as like an offshoot option.

You didn't say we're musicians, right, You said we're songwriters.

Yeah, and that felt so intentional to me.

So is that how you did you like shift the way you think like, I'm going to be I'm a songwriter?

Well?

Did you think that early on?

Pretty much?

I mean when I first Yeah, from the moment I started writing songs, I didn't really want to do anything else.

Yeah.

But then it was when I was in Once Blue that I started to have to think about writing songs that I wouldn't sing.

Yeah, that's a whole other thing.

That had to be solid, you know, that had to be good enough for someone else to put themselves into, both melodically and lyrically.

And so that was a, you know, the beginning of a lot of work to start to understand what that would be.

Was there somebody that you saw that did that that you kind of thought about it in that way, like did you think of a specific songwriter who's a good question?

Or it just kind of sort of all came around it.

Kind of it was more of the latter, But you know, I mean, of course I was well aware that a lot of people sang Bob Dylan songs, but I didn't really model my songwriting after him.

But I don't did you feel like he ever wrote for other people.

He probably just wrote.

Yeah, I think he's just churning out tunes and people just.

Plucking them, and you know, not like a real building thing where they were specifically writing for other right, like Carol King or something.

Yeah, no, yeah, it's funny.

Though.

Later on I came to discover that, like in the Brazilian world, they were doing more of this people.

You know, a lot of singers like Gal Costa would cover Kaitanos songs about Jill Bert Jill's songs for example.

But I was kind of the same.

I wasn't really writing for other people.

I was still writing songs, but trying to write songs that other people could sing, yeah, or that would you know, work for another person.

And a lot of that came down to lyric writing too, and melody of course, as I said before, but making lyrics that that another person could put themselves into.

Yeah, do you ever feel like you're taking yourself out of songs?

Like just one word here, one specific word there, you know.

Like, no, I don't.

I've never filtered myself like that.

Yeah, it's not that it's more than that, like or yeah.

No, it's it's more that I try to let the song, whatever it is, be its own, have its own life, Yeah, to have its own logic and its own story.

And I feel like songs do have their own intention.

Yeah, and they kind of grab you and pull you along the path, right.

Yeah, I feel like you just have to kind of help them become what they're supposed to be.

Yeah.

I think that's the right way to think about it.

But I think I was.

There was also a period where I think I was a little bit lazy and I didn't work hard enough on certain things that later I decided.

Really yeah, like what like lyrics.

I listened to some of my records some of the other one older ones or middle ones or whatever.

Some songs work, and then others are like, come on, I tuld have done so much better.

Oh, I hate that it's like on record.

Yeah, that's out there in the world.

There's nothing you can do.

But that's cool.

I mean, it's cool for people to see things that you know that all sides of it, you know, whatt you grow a person or an artist?

Yeah?

Yeah, Well I think it's funny because I think the you know, I didn't really write songs when I met you.

I had written a couple of songs in high school that were stinky, so I stopped.

And then after I met you, you would send me.

You sent me one flight down right, Yes, I do, when I still lived in Texas.

Yeah, I send it to you in the mail.

You sent me a chord chart and lyrics.

And the melody was written on there.

Yeah, but not not a recording, no recording.

Yeah.

It was a leader.

She was just the lead sheep.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I had I was like, oh, okay, cool.

Yeah, and I think I played it, but I never played it on a gig until we started doing her.

Right.

You send me a letter back and you said, my mom really likes you.

My mom likes yourself.

Yeah, a lot of people don't.

Know about you, Okay, that you're really good at.

Sight reading melodies and singing them off the page.

Yeah, I am, because I learned how to do that very early.

I took a weird music theory class in elementary school along with my classical class, which I never practiced for.

But the site reading stuff, I had to do it all in high school at the performing arts high school, and then all in college, and I tested out of it because I had already done all that but I'm not great at reading reading full music, like classical music.

Just a line of melody.

A line of melody is so easy for me.

But to read like, you know, a bunch of like the whole thing, the whole thing with the bass cleft, is still a little tricky.

Sure, but I got really good at reading courtes.

You could do those gigs where you just open up the real book, Yeah, any song and sing it.

Yeah.

So that's why you sent me that, because you knew I did that.

I guess, yeah, I mean maybe I guess I knew because Kenny had gone to.

See you perform.

That's right.

You hadn't seen me.

I didn't.

I hadn't even gone yet.

Yeah.

Yeah, he came to the restaurant Popolo's in Dallas.

But I could tell that you knew you were talking about because when we were doing that at first little jam session, you were calling out the chords in your key.

What a precocious little yeah, totally.

Yeah.

I was eighteen, eighteen or nineteen yeah, I was nineteen yeah, just turned yeah.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

And so when we started playing together, I could I came at it from a jazz place, and you always have had a lot of jazz influence, but you came at it from a more structured place, right, Yeah, well that's.

What was so cool.

That was cool.

Here you play piano over these chords and bring them to life in a different way that I hadn't heard before.

No, it was cool.

I mean we did it.

It was awesome.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Those were the days.

Let's do you another song from your new album.

This one reminds me that seventies kind of stuff, the influence.

Yeah that's true.

Okay, you get to sing with me, right.

Yeah, Okay, I can do this one.

Okay, Yeah, all right yeah Angular Angular Baby.

All right?

Three?

We got nowhere we're going.

Oh else, we could lose alway.

If we fund, we'll have ourselves sublame.

We gotta know what we do.

It's easy to make chase.

With no one's looking.

That's when the world can change.

We got and know what we god because if we lose.

We lose a lot.

We got and know win to stop searching fall.

We got.

We gotta know what we're thinking.

It sees it.

Thanks you much, and keep bone pushing until we're allowed to tell.

We got and know what.

We got because if we lose we lose a lot we.

Got and know when to stop searching fall we got.

We got, and know what we got because if we lose.

We lose a lote we got and know when to stop searching for.

We go.

Yeah right, I like that.

That's fun Yeah.

Well it's funny because I came to music singing other people's songs, mostly through jazz, singing the old songs, being afraid of songwriting, singing your songs.

And then the more and more I wrote, I feel like the harder it's become to sing other people's songs, which is such a weird thing.

Well, I mean, I get it, but it's it's a funny thing.

It's like an evolution of sure things.

If you grow accustom also to expressing yourself that way, yeah, then you're gonna want that opportunity for yourself, you know.

Yeah.

I mean it's funny because I feel like early on, like on my second and third record, you know, I wrote more and more, but I was still writing, like, still very timid about it, still crafting the songs in a way that I was into, you know.

But then the more years of past, I feel like it's just the emotion.

It's more emotion in it now than I used to put in it, and I don't know how to capture that emotion singing other people's songs interesting, but I know that I used to be able to do that, and I feel like it's almost like a skill I've lost a little bit, really a little bit.

I feel that you get an opportunity to be an interpret or sometimes in outside projects though.

Yeah, but I don't completely feel the rawness as much as I I mean, because I used to not think about it.

Maybe because it was because you didn't write as many things.

Maybe you would pour everything into the songs that you sang.

Maybe or I would relate to it.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm thinking, damn it.

And now I can write what I'm thinking.

But isn't that weird?

It's funny, you know, we're all evolving and changing.

Yeah, ideally hopefully hopefully, but uh yeah, I do feel like I'm not good at it anymore, like, which is a weird thing.

I don't think that's true.

I disagree, but you know what it is.

It's honesty.

I feel like when I when I was young, I felt very honest singing all those songs, and I still feel honest singing them because I have to sing them like I wrote them, because like when I sing, don't know why, and people get so excited.

I feel like I wrote it.

I always give you credit, but I feel like, but I hear a song now, but I feel like I have to sing it like it's mine.

But I don't even think about it.

I just do it.

I own it in my heart.

And I feel that way with the songs I've done in the past that I still do now.

But I find it harder to adopt a new songs that I didn't write.

Yeah, a new friend or something.

Yeah, yeah, Well, isn't it funny?

You keep thinking, yeah, I don't need any more friends, and then you get into the next decade of your life and you realize you have a whole new said friends.

Yeah, but that's interesting.

I thought it was interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, you know, it is something you've been working on and it wasn't there before.

Yeah, and it makes sense.

It's funny.

But I still own your songs in.

My heart, but you certainly own them when you sing them, that's for sure.

I love them.

People get so happy when they hear them.

It just like it brings people joy and it makes me so happy.

People always ask like, do you ever get sick of singing the same songs from your first record?

And I never do because the amount of like good energy it generates it makes me so happy.

You kind of rearrange them each time you do them.

I don't even mean to.

I think they just evolved.

I like that groove you guys do with brian On.

Don't know why kind of gospel groove that.

It has now.

Yeah, I like it too, but I hope people aren't bummed that it's a little different.

I don't seem bummed, but you.

Know what I mean.

Sometimes you don't want to change it too much, right.

I did sing it once.

I sing it once at a festival and I realized I was phrasing the bridge differently, and the audience started singing along and I wasn't singing with them correctly, and so I checked myself because I didn't even realize I was doing it.

So I went back to the old way.

It's just funny things.

Things drift off the off the map sometimes you don't know that they are.

Yeah, that's true.

You used to start doing it a different way of thinking about it.

But I think audience.

It depends on the performer, you know, like if James Taylor sings Fire and Rain, it has to be the same every single time pretty much.

But Dylan, Yeah, if the audience even figures.

Out what song he's singing, they're so exciting there as soon as they realize what, like, you know, oh, that's the groom still waiting at the altars, then they're really exciting that they know it, and then they'll start chanting along to the lyrics even though they're not even close to being in his phrasing.

I know, it's funny.

Yeah, it's something I don't think about much, but hopefully it's cool that it's a little different.

Well, yeah, it's totally cool.

Well, thanks for doing this.

I thought that we could.

I was wondering if you wanted to try a World of Trouble because this is the first song that is from like one of those demos we made Sony.

Yeah, but it's actually it got me.

It helped get me signed because I gave Bruce a blue note.

I gave him a recording of me doing a jazz tune, actually two jazz tunes, and World of Trouble.

So and then we recorded it for the Hottest State the movie.

Yeah, you you did the soundtrack to that film, and that was much later.

That was much later, but I still remember which album is it on?

Of yours?

It's on Cricolize, because I loved that album so much and I used to just sing along with it, and so it was one of my favorites of yours from the olden days.

Yeah, okay, we have a key discrepancy.

You sure do.

Yeah, you're very far away from I'm.

Really surprised because you have a high timber and I I feel like I don't get it.

I don't get the key to Oh you know, I know why, because it's it starts off slow.

Right, and then it goes high.

Yeah.

Yeah, so you said d flat, I mean I was singing flat.

What about seeing?

Yeah?

Yeah, you see your time, you see I see.

I don't need a k I don't get why we're so different.

That's a weird song to sing.

Basically, it's a hard song.

Yeah, I kind of I did a disservice to all of us.

No, it's a great song.

It's just a hard song.

The story of the recording from Crooked Lines is funny because we, as I said, made that record at Tony's house and we had recorded that song early on, and after we did it, we were like, cool, that's good, but we can do it better.

And for a solid year we.

Kept recording that song and every time we did her like, I don't know, we just don't.

She's not quite getting that one.

And one day Tony because it was all real to reel, Oh he on tape.

Yeah, we were on half inch.

It was eight track, half inch, And one day he put up a reel because he, you know, Tony like he doesn't he wasn't really marking the boxes very well, so we didn't even know what.

Was on this reel.

So he put the reel up to see what was there.

And all of a sudden, because all the tracks are open, there were the songs started to play and there were two vocals playing.

Oh that's right, it's got a double vocal.

But it was never meant to be.

That was just two different takes of the vocal where I sang it live, and then I was like, can I do it again?

And I did it again, and then we heard them together and then we said, oh, let's just leave it like that.

Yeah, so you had to take you just we had it for a year.

It needed a double vocal.

H.

Well, it's such a slow song.

Yes, And I find that songs this slow and vibe are really hard to just get because if you don't just get them, you can't labor over them.

Right, Yeah, they have to have that little bit of magicness.

Yeah, let's see if d works.

We're going to meet somewhere in the middle.

High PARTI high, but I think I can't do it.

Why don't you do the first verse and I'll sing harmony on the bridge, and then I'll do night Night when the phone rings?

Okay?

Is that cool?

Sure?

Okay?

And then what the last one?

We do together?

This is the last thing?

Yeah, okay, okay, cool?

Yeah, all right?

Yeah, and sing on World of Trouble with me even on the verse I do yep, yeah, yeah, totally.

Okay.

It starts off snow with the.

Kiss of folly.

And you don't see is more.

But after.

Wowing of the dogs, see sneaking in Little.

Bad you don't will lay tell you.

You don't really.

Down the world.

Shot, it's all.

You say.

I swear the phone rings, and it's so easy to get up and go back again.

You don't stop, you.

Don't think to leave without it.

No way, you are no wid.

It.

Don't blieve will they tell you.

You don't believe?

The world.

Shop it's old.

See this is the last.

Time, all the beginning, whenever.

You say enough, why each today, each month rolls out behind you.

The last time is coming your blood.

You don't really re They tell you you.

Don't really.

Then word.

Now, chop.

It's all.

You see.

A word.

Cho it's.

You.

I thought that word.

It was great.

Yeah, boy, she brings me back that song.

That was the special thing about that little time.

Yeah, and going to see everybody at the living room is they would actually just play their songs and you would get to know them before you'd even hear a recording.

Yeah.

In fact, I would often bring new songs to the gig, to my gigs and do them for the first time at the gig.

Same with you.

I remember the first time that we did the Long Day Is Over was live at Fez.

Oh, yeah, that one gig, same thing.

I brought you a lead sheet.

I was like, let's do this new song tonight, you know, and you and I had no way.

It wasn't Long Days Over.

It was what was I don't know what was it?

It was another song or.

Maybe it was long days over, but we had just written it.

We had just written it, but I brought the lead sheet and we did it for the first time on the gig.

Maybe oh, you brought the lead sheet for Lee maybe but on the bass.

But maybe the lyrics hadn't been written yet or something.

I don't know, but I just remember that time being so special because like I wasn't I was barely writing songs.

And it's why I started writing songs.

I came home from seeing like you guys and Tony at the living room and I wrote come Away with Me in my room alone with a guitar that I could barely play because I was inspired, you know.

Yeah, in that room that had a bed.

Oh yeah, my little rock bedrock.

We called it bedrock.

Hi.

Would you like to come hang out in my bed with me?

Because that's the only place I have to hang out, not romantically, just we'll rock out, play some songs.

Yeah, that's right, oh those days.

Well, I love you, thanks too, This is fun.

Yeah, thanks so much, all right.

Cool, all right, yeah, thanks Jesse, thank you.

That was so fun.

I love the story of how you guys met it's so special that you've stayed connected for so long.

Yeah, it's a good story.

Actually, you finish each other's sandwiches.

It's sweet.

It was sweet.

I'll never forget the day I met him and those guys.

It was a special day for me.

It was really great to play music.

We never really get to play together anymore, just like old times.

Yeah, Jesse's got a lot of new stuff coming out all the time, So check his pages and go see him live.

He plays a lot obviously in Paris as we went over, and a lot sometimes in New York City and he goes on tour, so check him out wherever he is.

If you want to know what songs we played on this episode.

The first song was called Having a Ball.

It's a song I sang with Jesse on his new album If You Believed in Me that just came out earlier this month.

Second song I've Got to See You Again, which I did record on my first album, Come Away with Me, but he also recorded it on his album Crooked Lines by Jesse Harrison the Ferdinandos in two thousand and one, and then again on another album, Songs Never Sung.

Third song was a newer song of Jesse's called if You Get a Broken Heart from the album Paper Flower twenty twenty four.

Fourth song was paper Flower from the same album.

The fifth song we did was We Got to Know from Paper Flower, and the sixth song is World of Trouble, which has been on a lot of different albums.

My demos from the Come Away with Me Deluxe album, The Crooked Lines, Jesse Harris and the Ferdinandos album from two thousand and one, and from the soundtrack to the movie The Hottest State two thousand and seven.

Special thanks Jesse Harris for joining us today.

Next week we'll be back with Sam Smith.

Norah Jones is playing along as a production of iHeart Podcasts.

I'm your Host Norah Jones.

This episode was recorded by Matt Marinelli, mixed by Jamie Landry, edited by Sarah Oda.

Additional engineering by Greg Tobler.

Additional recording by Jamie Landry.

Artwork by Eliza Frye, Photography by Shervin Lennaz.

Produced by Me and Sarah Oda.

Executive producers Aaron Wang Kaufman and Jordan Rundag, Marketing League Queen and a Key Toodles