I had an affinity for music and could play anything I heard on the piano, but I wasn't scholastically advanced in any way. It was more of a habitual tendency. I would work on weekends at piano bars playing jazz when I was an art student, but the music wasn't mine - it was covers: everything from Radiohead to really old jazz. But other than that, the only training I had was piano lessons from when I was nine until I was eleven.
Melody GardotPeople 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.
Melody GardotWhen someone tells you you're not going to walk again and you spend about a year and half on your back, your clothes don't mean much. I was in a robe every day, so I gave everything away - my whole wardrobe, down to the last dress. But at some point I woke up, maybe about four or five months after having done that that, and I thought, "You know what? I really want to try to wear high heels." That's why I wanted to learn to walk. It sounded really stupid but I just wanted to see. That to me was sort of definitive to who I was. So that was my goal.
Melody GardotI was riding my bicycle and I was hit by a Jeep. And the damage that was done to my body was gradually diagnosed, instead of immediately, so the recovery process for me was probably unnecessarily long: It took nearly two years for me to say that I could successfully walk. It was scary. And in a way, when you're faced with something like that, it forces you to change, and very quickly. I think that unconsciously, I felt called to a challenge-a challenge to regain something.
Melody GardotI had an affinity for music and could play anything I heard on the piano, but I wasn't scholastically advanced in any way. It was more of a habitual tendency. I would work on weekends at piano bars playing jazz when I was an art student, but the music wasn't mine - it was covers: everything from Radiohead to really old jazz. But other than that, the only training I had was piano lessons from when I was nine until I was eleven.
Melody Gardot