"I don't really make jazz anymore," Norah Jones told the New York Times recently. And not a moment too soon.

Truth is, the New York singer-pianist has never really been a bona fide jazz artist. Even her record label described her Grammy-magnet 2002 debut Come Away With Me as "jazz-informed." It was a diplomatic way of pointing out her songcraft owed as much to pop, soul, blues folk and country as it did to jazz.

The same label calls the dusty singer's moody third disc Not Too Late her most personal CD. That is a diplomatic way of saying anyone still hoping she'll make Come Away With Me Again should get over it already.

But there's no denying that the dark Not Too Late really is a personal work for Jones. It's personal in that she wrote or co-wrote every track for the first time. She recorded most of it at home with friends and her band, including bassist/boyfriend/producer Lee Alexander. And it contains some of her most revealing, opinionated and topical songs, most notably the politicized My Dear Country, on which she laments, "Nothing is as scary as election day, but the day after is darker."

That isn't likely to win her many fans in the red states, which is a shame, since most of this disc would go down well with the middle Americans who dug her 2006 country project The Little Willies. Not Too Late isn't quite as downhome as that, but it's easily her least jazzy album. Jones wrote a lot of it on guitar, and it shows -- time and again, her soothing piano melodies take a back seat to fingerpicked acoustics, weepy slides and twangy electric six-strings.

Nearly half these 13 numbers are slow, sad country waltzes and artfully stylized roots ballads like the lazy Until the End, the lightly orchestrated Broken, the cello-shaded Wish I Could and the hauntingly pretty Not My Friend.

Standing out from this low-key pack are the organ-laced, horn-flecked Memphis soul of first single Thinking About You, the lightly funky Be My Somebody and Sinkin' Slow, an old-timey viper blues with muted trombone, clattery percussion and a ramshackle Tom Waits vibe underscoring a barrelhouse Billie Holiday vocal.

Put them all together and you've got a disc that marks an artistic -- and yes, a personal -- evolution for Jones. No, she's not making jazz; she's making her own music. And not a moment too soon.

Track Listing:

1. Wish I Could
2. Sinkin' Soon
3. The Sun Doesn't Like You
4. Until The End
5. Not My Friend
6. Thinking About You
7. Broken
8. My Dear Country
9. Wake Me Up
10. Be My Somebody
11. Little Room
12. Rosie's Lullaby
13. Not Too Late