Melody Gardot
Melody Gardot /ɡɑːrˈdoʊ/ (born February 2, 1985) is an American jazz singer who has been influenced by such blues and jazz artists as Judy Garland, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Stan Getz and George Gershwin as well as Latin music artists such as Caetano Veloso. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award.
Melody Gardot | |
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Gardot in Berlin, Germany, 2010 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Melody Gardot |
Born | New Jersey | February 2, 1985
Origin | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, musician |
Instruments |
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Years active | 2004–present |
Labels | |
Website | www |
At the age of 19, Gardot was involved in a bicycle accident and sustained a head injury. Music played a critical role in her recovery. She became an advocate of music therapy,[1] visiting hospitals and universities to discuss its benefits. In 2012, she gave her name to a music therapy program in New Jersey.[2]
Early life and education
Gardot was born in New Jersey and was brought up by her grandparents. Her grandmother was a Polish immigrant. Her mother, a photographer, traveled often, so they had few possessions and lived out of suitcases.[3][4] Gardot studied fashion at the Community College of Philadelphia.[5]
Accident and therapy
While riding her bicycle in Philadelphia in November 2003,[6][7] Gardot was struck by the driver of an SUV and sustained head, spinal, and pelvic injuries.[1] Confined to a hospital bed for a year, she needed to relearn simple tasks and was left oversensitive to light and sound.[3] Suffering from short- and long-term memory loss, she struggled with her sense of time.[8][9]
Encouraged by a physician who believed music would help heal her brain, Gardot learned to hum, then to sing into a tape recorder, and eventually to write songs.[10]
For several years, she traveled with a physiotherapist and carried a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator to reduce pain.[3][9]
Given her oversensitivity to sound, she chose quieter music. On the treadmill, she listened to bossa nova by Stan Getz. Unable to sit comfortably at the piano, she learned to play guitar on her back.[4] During her recovery, she wrote songs that became part of the self-produced EP Some Lessons: The Bedroom Sessions.[11] Gardot was reluctant to record her songs at first, stating that they were too private for the public to hear, but relented and allowed her songs to be played on a Philadelphia radio station.[4]
Personal life
Gardot is a Buddhist,[8][12] macrobiotic cook,[13] and humanitarian.[14] She speaks fluent French in addition to her native English and considers herself a "citizen of the world".[15]
Since 2017, Melody Gardot lives in Paris.[16]
Music career
Gardot started music lessons at the age of nine and began playing piano in Philadelphia bars at the age of 16 on Fridays and Saturdays for four hours a night. She insisted on playing only music she liked, such as The Mamas & the Papas, Duke Ellington, and Radiohead.[17]
During her time in the hospital she learned how to play the guitar and began writing songs, which were made available as downloads on iTunes and released on Some Lessons: The Bedroom Sessions in 2005. She began to play these songs at venues in Philadelphia and was noticed by employees of the radio station WXPN, operated by the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, which helped to start the career of Norah Jones. She was encouraged to send a demo tape to the radio station, and the tape found its way to the Universal Music Group.[3] She released her first album, Worrisome Heart (Verve, 2006), then My One and Only Thrill (Verve 2009), produced by Larry Klein.
Discography
Albums
Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Sales | Certifications | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US [18] |
AUS [19] |
FRA [20] |
GER [21] |
IRE [21] |
JPN [22] |
NLD [23] |
NOR [21] |
NZ [24] |
SWE [25] |
UK [26] | ||||
Worrisome Heart |
|
80 | 93 | 8 | 44 | — | 86 | — | 31 | — | 25 | 172 |
|
|
My One and Only Thrill |
|
42 | 23 | 4 | 4 | 34 | 27 | 20 | 2 | 11 | 1 | 12 | ||
The Absence |
|
33 | 43 | 3 | 9 | 22 | 22 | 16 | 1 | 38 | 3 | 18 |
|
|
Currency of Man |
|
124 | 80 | 5 | 11 | 29 | 59 | 12 | 14 | 20 | — | 31 | ||
"—" denotes a title that did not chart. |
Extended plays
Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US Jazz [18] | |||||||||||||
Some Lessons: The Bedroom Sessions |
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— | |||||||||||
Live from SoHo |
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2 | |||||||||||
Bye Bye Blackbird EP |
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— | |||||||||||
A Night with Melody EP |
|
— | |||||||||||
"—" denotes a title that did not chart |
Singles
- "Worrisome Heart" (2008)
- "Goodnite" (2008)
- "Quiet Fire" (2008)
- "Who Will Comfort Me" (2009)
- "Baby I'm a Fool" (2009)
- "If the Stars Were Mine" (2009)
- "Your Heart Is as Black as Night" (2011)
- "Mira" (2012)
- "Amalia" (2012)
- "La vie en rose" (2012)[36]
- "Same to You" (2015)
- "Preacherman" (2015)[37]
- "It Gonna Come" (2016)
Collaborations
Gardot appears on the following songs, on vocals and occasionally piano or guitar, by other artists:
- Beaucoup Blue – "Bluer Than a Midnight Sky" on Free to Fall
- Till Brönner – "High Night (Alta Noite)" on RIO (2008)
- Charlie Haden Quartet West – "If I'm Lucky" on Sophisticated Ladies (EmArcy, 2010)
- Seth Kallen & The Reaction – "My Sweet Darling" on Exhibit A
- Phil Roy – "A Meditation on War and the Fight for Love" on The Great Longing
- Eddy Mitchell – "Derrière l'arc-en-ciel / Over the Rainbow" on Grand ecran
- Juliette Gréco – "Sous les ponts de Paris (Under the Bridges of Paris)" on Ça se traverse et c'est beau (Feb. 2012)
- Jesse Harris – "Tant pis" on Sub Rosa (July 2012)
- Baptiste Trotignon – "Mon fantôme" on Song Song Song (Sept. 2012)
- Lizanne Knott – "There Are Angels" on Marionette (Sept. 2012, UK release)
- Federico Aubele - "Somewhere Else" on 5 (Fall 2013)
- Pierre Aderne - "Limoeiro" and "Melodia e Letra" on Caboclo (2014/2015)
- Vinicius Cantuária - "Insensatez" on Vinicius canta Antonio Carlos Jobim (2015)
- "He's a tramp" and "The Bare Necessities" on Jazz loves Disney (2016)
- "C'est trop tard" on Elles & Barbara (2017)
- "The King of 52nd Street" on The Passion Of Charlie Parker (2017)
References
- Zuel, Bernard (2 May 2009). "Melody Gardot should not be playing music". Brisbane Times. Retrieved 9 August 2009.
- "Unchained Melody". Telegraph Magazine. London. 5 May 2012.
When she was 19 a road accident nearly ended Melody Gardot's life – and started her acclaimed singing career. Eight years on, she still can't escape the pain but it hasn't stopped her traveling the world to record her third album
- Iley, Chrissie (2009-03-29). The Sunday Times Magazine. pp. 12–17.
- "The Making of Melody". European Intelligence Wire. 20 September 2009.
- "Unchained Melody". Philadelphia City Paper. Archived from the original on 2009-08-17. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- "Melody Gardot hits New York". July 2005. Archived from the original on 2009-05-06. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- "Melody Gardot's Road to Recovery". March 2008.
- Kerr, Alison (2009-06-13). "Interview". The Herald Magazine. pp. 14–17.
- "How Melody Gardot Found Her Voice". CBS News. 14 June 2010.
- Stephen Clark - Design. "melody gardot: melody cool".
- Holden, Stephen (15 October 2009). "From Death's Door to Earning the Keys to the World". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
- Iley, Chrissy (2009-03-29). "Melody Gardot: Music is my love – men are just my lovers". Times online. iley. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
- Gardot, Melody. "10 Useful Steps for Getting Started with Macrobiotics - Melody Gardot". www.macrobiotics.co.uk. Archived from the original on 14 March 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2009.
- Bonetti, Deborah (2015-05-12). "Melody Gardot – La politica del jazz". Style (Il Giornale). Italy.
- Henn, Jennifer L. (1 June 2010). "Globetrotting Melody Gardot makes Westhampton Beach a stop for a performance on June 6". 27east. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
- Burel, Romain (2018-04-17). "Interview exclusive de la jazzman Melody Gardot". numéro. Paris.
- "Melody Gardot". Archived from the original on 2009-07-22. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- Michael G. Nastos. "Melody Gardot". AllMusic.
- Melody Gardot - australian-charts.com
- Currency of Man: Ryan, Gavin (June 6, 2015). "ARIA Albums: Florence + The Machine Debuts At No 1". Noise11. Retrieved June 6, 2015.
- Melody Gardot - lescharts.com (in French)
- "Melody Gardot".
- - http://www.oricon.co.jp (in Japanese)
- Melody Gardot - http://dutchcharts.nl (in Dutch)
- Melody Gardot - charts.org.nz
- Melody Gardot - swedishcharts.com (in Swedish)
- "Chart Log UK".
- Aymeric Pichvin (April 3, 2010). "Waiting for Gardot". Billboard.
- "Bundesverband Musikindustrie: Gold-/Platin-Datenbank".
- "Album Credits". www.aria.com.au. Retrieved 2016-01-14.
- French album certifications – Melody Gardot – My One and Only Thrill Archived 2011-07-10 at the Wayback Machine (in French)
- Gold-/Platin-Datenbank (Melody Gardot; 'My One and Only Thrill') (in German)
- Guld- och Platinacertifikat − År 2010 Archived 2012-01-28 at the Wayback Machine
- − Certifified awards Archived 2016-09-17 at the Wayback Machine Search for Melody Gardot by artist
- "Upcoming Releases". Hits Daily Double. HITS Digital Ventures. Archived from the original on May 15, 2015.
- French album certifications – Melody Gardot – The Absence (in French)
- "Melody Gardot Teams Up with Piaget". Archived from the original on 2013-02-03. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
- Bonetti, Deborah (2015-05-12) "Melody Gardot - La politica del jazz". Style Magazine, Italy.