Jazz chanteuse Melody Gardot paints the aural canvas like few others; and Live in Europe, which collects live performances from 2012 through 2016, is a testament to that fact. In the studio, she blends the primary colors of music – the heart and soul – into a wide array of hues, both light and dark, colorful and monotone. On the stage, however, she expands the palate even further, fusing together jazz, R&B and traditional pop into a hypnotic listen.
The album opens with “Our Love Is Easy,” one of many standout tracks from her 2009 album My One and Only Thrill, as performed in 2012 Paris.
Another of that album’s tracks is presented twice – “Baby I’m a Fool.” The first, from Vienna 2013, is spellbinding in its seductiveness; the second, from London 2016, is equally wondrous and luscious. Why she chose to include both, however, is a bit of a mystery. (She curated the set herself, as she explains in the liner notes.) But I have no complaints – it’s a great song.
In the studio, her songs are often marvels of singer-songwriter precision, with the placement of each note serving a purpose larger than itself. Live, however, she and her band often transform the same songs into intricate jams that extend and explore each note as if they’re songs unto themselves. For example, the studio version of “Who Will Comfort Me,” also from My One and Only Thrill, is a fairly compact, finger-snapping plea of a beaten-down soul. The live rendition here, recorded in Amsterdam 2015, features a Paradise Lost-like swirl of torment courtesy of trumpeter Shareef Clayton.
Likewise, in its studio incarnation, Currency of Man’s soulful “Morning Sun” has all the earmarks of a lost singer-songwriter gem from the early or mid-1970s. In Paris 2015, however – much like Philadelphia 2015 – the song mimics a sunrise in more faithful fashion, slowly cascading from the horizon and into the sky until, at last, light overwhelms darkness. It’s soulful and dramatic, stirring and hypnotic, and no longer conjures one era but all eras, past, present and future. It’s magical and mystical, like Live in Europe as a whole.
It’s well worth checking out, in other words.
The set is available as a double-CD, triple-LP or digital download (and is also available to stream on the usual outlets). The track list:
The Old Grey Cat 
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