The first time I saw Norah Jones, she was playing to a tiny audience in a Soho jazz club. I didn’t suspect that I was watching a superstar in the making. Too diffident and reserved, I thought, and the songs tended to slip into a blur of amiable but unmemorable mid-tempo romance. So much for my powers of clairvoyance. Yet what was interesting about the opening date of her brief visit to Britain was how little, in essence, she has changed since then. The venues are bigger, but the American singer-songwriter still does things her own way, which can make for a frustrating experience at times. This low-key performance was about 20 minutes too long, and sometimes had the aura of a band on the college circuit.

In the end, though, you can forgive Jones just about anything, partly because she possesses one of the purest voices on the globe and, more importantly, because she is helping a pop audience to reconnect with a grown-up repertoire. In these adolescent times, that is no small feat. All those sneers about dinner-party soundtracks overlook the fact that her band’s arrangements create an exceptionally sophisticated blend of Americana, elements of country, R&B, art rock and café society jazz.

An artfully lit, blood-red set generated some atmosphere in this functional civic venue. Jones was too intent on shuffling between guitar, piano and electric keyboard to indulge in anything more than a few girlish words with the audience. Adam Levy’s guitar playing was more eloquent, with jagged Frisell-like chords and rootsy banjo licks.

The songs from the most recent album, Not too Late, are an uneven bunch, but Wish I Could has a touch of genuine poetry, while the sardonic view of election-night politics on My Dear Country would do credit to that master of satire Randy Newman.

The show would have benefited from a change of pace halfway through. One brief flicker of jazz piano, and a rumble of Ellington-like tom-toms, hinted at what Jones and her band would be capable of if they chose to head further in an instrumental direction. In a slightly ragged but rousing rockabilly finale, she was joined by her support act, the indie-folk singer M. Ward. And at the encore, gentle sighs echoed around the hall as Don’t Know Why finally made an appearance.

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