This is the fifth studio album of American jazz singer Melody Gardot. She made the album partly during the 2020 pandemic. The song From Paris with love is a worldwide reminder to keep the joy in the making of music. For that song, Gardot asked musicians around the world to sing with her, but in their own homes. They could send the results digitally, and they were inserted in the final song. Also, she paid the musicians UK wages, even though they were working from areas that normally were paid a lot less. Gardot: It is so important that we come together in this moment where there is a deafening silence happening in the arts…we are part of one large family (artists, musicians, singers, painters…) and this album is a testament to that collaborative spirit; a smorgasbord of talent all in one place, and living proof, that even now, we can use the numerous resources we have to break traditional ways of thinking about recordings, if just for the simple sake of continuing to move forward and create great music. A noble spirit, and something that I admire her for.
This album is a mix of jazz standards and Gardot’s own compositions. I like them both, but I am missing the live energy of the previous album. I think Gardot live is worth it, but the album versions are a bit flat. It feels like the fire was taken out. I can make a possible exception for Love song, mainly because of the work of trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, a French-Lebanese musician and composer. He really plays his *ss off on this song.
One song has Sting in it (and it is not on this version of the album!!), and he said about working with Gardot: This new song… has a simple and infectious joy, and it was so much fun to trade vocals with the exquisite Melody Gardot I hope you can hear the smile in our voices. I believe that, but I cannot hear it.
