WHAT I WANT - NORA YORK
Since emerging from New York’s Knitting Factory jazz scene in the late ’90s, Nora York has ignored musical boundaries. Like sister in song Nellie McKay, she has no use for the words “musical genre.” On her third album, the aurally delicious “What I Want,” York stands tall and proud at the intersection of Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Jane Siberry and Norah Jones. York had a hand in writing the bulk of the songs here, such as the buoyant title track. “Artificial Paradise” manages to bridge the gap between Mitchell’s “Hejira” and “Dog Eat Dog” — no easy feat, for sure. In York’s worldview, desire and redemption share the same stage. A cover of Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man” lacks luster, but a reading of the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday,” stripped of any excess, is, in a word, beautiful. Billboard
