MELODY GARDOT

There's all kinds of charisma. Last post I was talking about Marilyn Monroe's (once in a poem I pointed out something that struck me in the mid 1950s when I was hitting puberty: the three sexiest movie stars in the world at the time were Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando and Bridget Bardot, hmmmm....). But the kind of charisma that a few music creators generate is something different than MM's. But no less sexy or transcendent.

Here's the latest musically charismatic creator in my personal pantheon: Melody Gardot (hmmm....).  Not only is she an exceptional singer and songwriter and performer, I believe she also is a survivor of severe brain trauma that left her with many of the difficulties I had post-brain-op only hers were much more severe. As part of her recovery, she got into Astrud Gilberto, the Brazilian singer who made "The Girl From Impanema" famous, and Gardot even went to Brazil to study the music up close and learn some Portuguese.

Just to show you how successfully she's incorporated that influence among others into her amazing new album [I guess that should be CD] THE ABSENCE check out this YouTube video of a live performance of her song "Mira" (I have speakers attached to my laptop—thanks to my oldest son Miles—so I can get the full sound, especially the bass, with extreme clarity, but I think even just through computer speakers you will feel the urge to dance in your seat as this song builds into an irresistibly rhythmic expression of joy [though many of the songs on THE ABSENCE are darker they are still as musically compelling]):