Melody Gardot started singing as a therapy and conquered the world

For those who think that so-called standard music is made for elevators by wimps, you need to meet Melody Gardot (New Jersey, February 2, 1985). She didn’t even think about being a singer until, after a horrible accident full of after-effects, she began to recover with music therapy. Luckily for us, Melody Gardot went beyond the therapy sessions.

Also a composer, Melody is a goddess influenced by the blues and jazz of Janis Joplin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin, and by the Latin music of Stan Getz and Caetano Veloso – in addition to a mad passion for Tom Jobim. “There is almost nothing better than Jobim”, she says on the program. “The Chateau D’Herouville Sessions”currently shown on Film&Arts.

Melody is known as the “accidental artist”. In 2003, at the age of 18, she suffered a tragic accident while riding her bicycle, being violently hit by a Jeep Cherokee. She suffered multiple fractures in the pelvic and cervical region, and a head injury, which resulted in the loss of memory and basic abilities such as walking and talking, having to relearn everything from scratch.

As a result of this accident, Melody was left with some after-effects, suffering from kinetic vertigo, which is why she uses a cane. She also became hypersensitive to sound and photosensitive, which means she always wears sunglasses, as she cannot tolerate light.

Alongside his musical career, he is developing a program with medical universities called Chateau Gardot, which seeks to develop therapeutic programs to treat pain through music therapy. This program is based on his own experience, in which traditional treatments were ineffective.

By Ezatamentchy