Denton: Norah Jones at the University of North Texas

The University of North Texas in Denton has one of the finest jazz programs in the country. When Norah Jones arrived in 1997 after graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, she was exactly the kind of student the program was built for — technically disciplined, harmonically curious, and already performing. She majored in jazz piano and sang with the UNT Jazz Singers.

She also kept playing locally. On weekends she performed solo at a restaurant in Denton, building her comfort in front of audiences one set at a time. She played in a band called Laszlo, named for a character from Casablanca, with guitarist and songwriter Jerome Covington. The band gave her a framework for original material. She was writing and performing her own songs before she left Texas.

Denton, Then New York, Then Everywhere

After two years at UNT, she made the move to New York City in 1999. The jazz program had given her the tools. Denton had given her the stage time. She arrived in New York as a working musician, not a student, and started playing the downtown clubs that would connect her with producers and collaborators.

She recorded Come Away With Me in 2001. It was released in 2002 and changed everything. The album’s sound — spare piano, unhurried vocals, country and jazz and soul folded together — owed something to every place she had lived in Texas. The UNT jazz faculty heard it and recognized what they had helped build.

Denton honored her with a star on the Arts Walk of Fame. The University of North Texas named her a Texas State Musician in 2025. Some debts run both ways.