Melody Gardot: The Absence Die Version auf CD in Standard- Auflage. Diese besondere Auflage wurde veröffentlicht in Europa im Verlag Decca am 21. Dezember 2024.

A good two years after the release of her last work "My One and Only Thrill", Melody Gardot was touring the world, rushing from continent to continent and from concert to concert. In fact, you'd think she'd have had enough of travelling for a while by then. But no, Melody was still restless and eager for variety. On her own, she continued to travel to experience people and other cultures. She wandered the deserts of Morocco and the streets of Lisbon, visited the tango bars of Buenos Aires and the beaches of Brazil, and tried to capture something of the essence of all these exotic places for the album "The Absence" without giving up her own musical identity. In the summer of 2010, Melody took a last-minute trip to Marrakech. While in the desert, she had an epiphany: "There are so many languages and cultures," she says, "but it's always amazing how the music of the whole world is spiritually similar." Melody's next stop was Lisbon. She settled down with her piano in a weathered palace in the old Alfama city center and tried to get to the bottom of the so-called saudade, that indefinable, wholly Portuguese sense of loss and longing. Songs like "Lisboa" bring to mind her time in the Portuguese capital and the musical sounds she picked up in its narrow streets: children playing, church bells, singers on street corners. She learned the language, walked through fado clubs and immersed herself in songwriting. From Lisbon, she went to Buenos Aires. As a passionate tango dancer, she was naturally drawn to the historic San Telmo district, whose streets are literally filled with the sound of tango music. Inspired by the dramatic rhythms and spirit of tango, she wrote songs like "Goodbye" and the brooding "So We Meet Again, My Heartache". The exotic street culture of Buenos Aires provided the backdrop for her to delve even deeper into the feeling of saudade. Finally and at last, Melody was ready to head out into the sun and explore the music of Brazil. She chartered a sailboat and asked the captain to head north. For a month they sailed along the Brazilian coast. It was just what Melody needed to relax. The rich colors of the landscape, the smiles of the people, and the passion of the samba brought Melody out of the depths of longing and sadness. That's where songs like "Mira" and "Yemanja" were born. "A lot of the stories I tell on this album come from my own experiences," says Melody Gardot, "but also from observations I made while living with all these strangers. I've seen them suddenly overcome with sadness or joy at the most inconspicuous moments, and yet a common bond has formed between us." "When you experience love in a different way, when you understand what love means in a community, you realize what really brings people together," the American singer-songwriter philosophizes. "For me, it changed a lot of things: it brought me closer - especially in Brazil - to people who use music to celebrate." With all these experiences and musical impressions in her luggage, Melody returned to the U.S., where she immediately contacted producer, songwriter and guitarist Heitor Pereira. "It was an amazing meeting," Melody recalls of meeting Pereira. "I got to a point where I didn't know what to do next. In the months I've been traveling, all this music has somehow bubbled up inside me, but it hasn't found its way out yet. I needed a partner and collaborator with his own genius. I needed someone crazy enough to understand how serious I was about the phrase "I want to play palm fronds and washboard". Plus, he had to make sure I got what I wanted." The ideal partner turned out to be Heitor Teixeira Pereira (aka Heitor TP), who was born in Brazil and now lives in the US. From 1988 to 1996, he was the guitarist for Simply Red and accompanied pop greats such as Sting, Elton John, Rod Stewart, K.D. Lang, Seal, Caetano Veloso and Jack Johnson before making a name for himself as a film composer and musician (e.g. Like Melody Gardot, he has a penchant for breaking out of the mold musically, straddling the no-man's land of Western pop music, jazz, blues and soul. And when it comes to trying out sonic ideas, he's as adventurous as Melody herself. The two have collaborated on the songs Se você me ama ("When You Love Me") and Amália. Heitor, of course, plays guitar and his vocals can be heard on "Se você me ama". He also wrote the orchestral arrangement. Bassist John Leftwich, percussionist Paulinho da Costa, and drummers Jim Keltner and Peter Erskine round out the core lineup.

Album Genres übergreifend Jazz und Soul-Jazz.