Melody Gardot

Baby I’m a fool who thinks it’s cool to fall in love!

It became a kind of a game, to remember the things that had happened five minutes ago. I would start making notes about the things I was doing, on an instrument that was foreign to me, the guitar, so it was just a fun way of doing cognitive therapy. I was none the wiser to it until I began to improve and my ability to speak began to come back.

Music activates the brain at a high level.

People always ask, “Why jazz?” and I’m like “Why not?” It’s kind of like asking Seurat, “Why so many dots?” I imagine if you asked Bjork, “Why the Tibetan bells?” She’d probably be like “That’s just what I heard.” It’s the same thing. This is just the way I see music.

The first time I ever had to go overseas for music was to play the Royal Festival Hall in London, singing in a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and that week was insane: Thursday I rehearse with the orchestra; Friday I sing two songs in front of 2,500 people, which I have never done before; and the next day I go to Abbey Road to record with Herbie Hancock; and then I am playing a pub in south London somewhere, and nobody cares because London have lost some sporting match; and then I go home and I’m standing in front of my washing machine, putting my unmentionables into the dryer, and in that instant, I just looked at myself and said ‘This life is going to be strange’.

Why Jazz? This is just the way I see music.

I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton… oh, there’s many more! I wouldn’t want to be like them, you understand, but I’d like to be equal, if you will.

It made no sense to ignore them and to continue writing as if they did not exist. I felt that it was worth the effort to see if I couldn’t say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms.

Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn’t mean he lacks vision.

Sometimes I sound like gravel and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.

This be an empty world without the blues.

Musically, I love to talk just off the top of my head and that’s what Jazz is all about.

We open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to arrive at something new and different.

There are notes between notes, you know.

You can have the greatest player in terms of mastering an instrument and be yawning your head off.

Music opens up minds to dream great dreams about where you can go and what you can do.

10% of musicians make 90% of the money, while the remaining 90% of musicians make the 10% that’s left.

People will always need love, romance, a tender touch and really personal and deeply felt music.

The drummer; he inspired me to play like no one else I have ever met.

Jazz singing is like pornography. You can’t say what it is, but you know it when you see it.

Jazz music will continue to thrive, possibly in unexpected ways.