Melody Gardot

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Melody Gardot is a Grammy-nominated American singer, writer and musician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, though she considers herself a "citizen of the world". She 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. Her music has been compared to that of Nina Simone.

In a recent interview she was rumored to be working closely in a university in the United States to help develop a program for music therapy and the management of pain, something she has spoken about establishing in the future on her own.

Unfortunately, in November 2003, she involved in an accident. The accident also resulted in both long and short term memory problems and difficulty with her sense of time. Gardot has described coping with this as like "climbing Mount Everest every day" as she often wakes with no memory of what she has to do that day. Initially prompted by an attending physician who believed music would help her brain injury drastically improve, Gardot began writing music after her accident and since then often speaks and advocates in favour of using music for therapy. The accident had damaged the neural pathways between the brain's two cortexes which control perception and higher mental function, and made Gardot (in her own words) "a bit of a vegetable." As well as making it very hard for her to speak or communicate properly, she found it difficult to recall the right words to express her feelings.

Following an extensive two-year world tour in support of her highly successful major label debut, My One and Only Thrill, Melody Gardot was restless and ready for new adventure. She continued her travels around the world meeting new people and experiencing new cultures. Melody carried all of these experiences, knowledge and music with her back to the States where she met with producer, composer and guitarist, Heitor Pereira. The Brazilian-born, US-based artist shared Melody’s enthusiasm for driving off the beaten path of Western pop, jazz, blues and soul. And he was as adventurous as Melody when it came to inventive sonic ideas.