Melody Gardot – Sunset In The Blue (Deluxe Version) (2020/2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:25:45 minutes | 1,77 GB | Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca (UMO)
With 2020’s Sunset in the Blue singer Melody Gardot sinks into a dusky and languorously produced album that builds upon her love of jazz standards, Brazilian music, and intimate balladry. The record finds Gardot surrounded by a production dream team, including longtime associate Larry Klein, who helmed 2009’s My One and Only Thrill and 2015’s Currency of Man, as well as equally acclaimed studio pros, arranger Vince Mendoza and engineer Al Schmitt. Together, they have crafted a showcase for Gardot’s delicately nuanced vocal style. The album is an interesting dichotomy, at once intimate as if Gardot is singing to you in a small club, yet also widescreen, framing her hushed vocals in sweeping orchestrations that reinforce the romantic drama at play in the songs. The opening original “If You Love Me Let Me Know,” sounds like something Dinah Washington or Abbey Lincoln might sing, but filtered through the half-lidded scrim of Gardot’s bedroom intimacy. Equally evocative moments follow, as on the yearning “You Won’t Forget Me,” in which Gardot balances a wry cabaret theatricality à la Marlene Dietrich with a tangible sadness that never feels anything but real. Elsewhere, she gently wades into a handful of earthy bossa nova songs, including a gorgeously attenuated reading of the Ella Fitzgerald number “C’est Magnifique” featuring Brazilian singer António Zambujo and a crackling take of Marco Paulo’s “Ninguem, Ninguem” that she sings in Portuguese. We also get a movie theme-ready version of “From Paris with Love,” as well as memorable takes on classics like “Moon River” and “I Fall in Love Too Easily.” From beginning to end, Gardot’s Sunset in the Blue holds you in its deeply rapturous glow.
In 2015, Melody Gardot stepped out of her comfort zone with Currency of Man, an album which suited her entirely but displayed a more soul’n’blues side. That is not to say that her brilliant past efforts were not in keeping with her musical personality, but it was with this record that she confirmed her love for Philadelphia, the town in which she grew up and where groove holds a different meaning. Five years later, Sunset in the Blue holds all the hallmarks of a return to the singer’s old days which made Melody Gardot’s name. The album is a stripped-back approach to jazz and bossa-nova as imposed by the unexpected circumstances of the year 2020. When the album was beginning development, the pandemic brought a halt to everything an forced the American to rethink the project. She hence proposed that her associates, spread out all over the world, work from a distance. Melody Gardot was based in Paris, her arranger and conductor Vince Mendoza in Los Angeles and the majority of her musicians in England! Despite these constraints, the miracle record was on course for creation which would span a period of roughly five months. And so, Mendoza found himself conducting on-screen from California with musicians playing in London’s Abbey Road Studios (things weren’t made any easier considering the various time-differences). In addition to Mendoza, Melody Grant recruited a set of silky smooth sound connoisseurs who were also instrumental in the success of 2009’s My One and Only Thrill: the producer Larry Klein and sound engineer Al Schmitt.
Upon listening to the end result, however, we soon forget the last-minute DIY means with which this album was made. Because throughout Sunset in the Blue, Melody Gardot maintains a fascinatingly solid and intimate direction. Here we see a return to Gardot whispering hypnotically into the ear as she sings amid intermittent piano phrases and guitars. Her voice gracefully lounges upon a bed of refined and perfectly balanced violin strings. This formula reaches an irresistible climax with the album’s title track as she turns to her much-loved Brazil with tracks like Ninguém, Ninguém and Um Beljo, before she returns to the exquisite-sounding Moon River and I Fall in Love too Easily. A beautiful album which finishes with a somewhat intrusive track, Little Something, a pop duet with Sting that doesn’t really fit in with Sunset in the Blue’s general mood. – Marc Zisman
Tracklist:
1-1. Melody Gardot – If You Love Me (04:35)
1-2. Melody Gardot – C’est Magnifique (04:52)
1-3. Melody Gardot – There Where He Lives In Me (05:49)
1-4. Melody Gardot – Love Song (03:58)
1-5. Melody Gardot – You Won’t Forget Me (06:05)
1-6. Melody Gardot – Sunset In The Blue (04:32)
1-7. Melody Gardot – Um Beijo (04:06)
1-8. Melody Gardot – Ninguém, Ninguém (03:38)
1-9. Melody Gardot – From Paris With Love (Single Version) (04:47)
1-10. Melody Gardot – Ave Maria (04:27)
1-11. Melody Gardot – Moon River (03:48)
1-12. Melody Gardot – I Fall In Love Too Easily (03:09)
1-13. Melody Gardot – Little Something (02:41)
1-14. Melody Gardot – From Paris With Love (Acoustic) (04:21)
1-15. Melody Gardot – Love Song (05:25)
1-16. Melody Gardot – Trav’lin’ Light (04:06)
1-17. Melody Gardot – What Is This Thing Called Love (03:27)
1-18. Melody Gardot – C’est Magnifique (Live In Namouche Studios) (04:54)
1-19. Melody Gardot – La Chanson de vieux amants (06:55)
