Katie Melua Jazzes It Up
Katie Melua puts an elegance into jazz that’s rarely found. She croons her way through a mixture of jazz, pop, and blues melodies that fill a room with flavour and ambience. Her second album, Piece by Piece, is a great collection of songs that has gone platinum 4 times over. Not bad for a singer and musician who’s only 22 years old and is just starting her career.
Ketevan (Katie) Melua was born in Georgia (the country, not the state) and raised in Northern Ireland and England. Georgia is a country of lush valleys surrounded by unforgiving mountains - and there’s evidence that at one point in history, half of the world’s population either lived in Georgia or travelled through this gateway between Europe and Asia. With such a rich cultural background, it’s no wonder Katie has been able to make a little history of her own; In 2003 at the age of 19 she released her first album, Call off the Search. Her second album, Piece by Piece was released in 2005 and propelled her to become the biggest selling female artist in the UK.
YouTube has plenty performances, videos, and interviews with Katie that you can check out. She’s an ambassador for savethechildren.org in the UK which works throughout the world helping impoverished children overcome the barriers they face in dealing with health, education, exploitation and disease.
Piece by Piece is put together with all kinds of pieces. There are loungey jazz songs like Shy Boy, Blue shoes, and the title track Piece by Piece. There are dreamy melodies in I Cried For You and I Do Believe In Love. Nine Million Bicycles and Half Way Up The Hindukush add some quirky spice to the album. She throws in a couple of amazing cover renditions with Canned Heat’s On The Road Again and The Cure’s Just Like Heaven. The song was featured in the movie Just Like Heaven
