One small criticism of Melody Gardot's stylistic delivery, also true of Joss Stone and other singers in the "Blue Eyed Soul" music segment.
Their verbal delivery mimics Black accent and style. This is not needed - the music works regardless of the singer's accent. It would in fact be better all around, if white singers sang in their own voice. Diana Krall does and her music certainly doesn't suffer.
As an immigrant white (Russian) boy growing up in the Black ghetto, my early English accent was Black. I chose to eventually change it, because I came to a conclusion it was derivative and didn't represent my overall history.
But perhaps I did that to unconsciously take advantage of white privilege. Certainly, when I had my MIT interview, I chose not to sound Black. I guess I figured out stuff by then. The nice white lady alumni who interviewed me would not have liked it in 1981... probably.
Weirdly, I was robbed of my wallet at gun point on my way to the interview - on a subway platform.. This was my one and only time looking at a revolver pointed at me (I think a .38) - and realizing there were bullets in every chamber (I don't mean to say there were other times people pointed guns at me). Robber seemed spooked by the incoming train and so he didn't pull the trigger and kill me. After the MIT interview and a session with NYC police back home (unproductive - they wanted me to identify a suspect without offering protection to my family), the wallet was dropped off to my apartment building minus $10 cash in it.
Bottom line, life is strange. I am typing this because of the NYC train schedule and a decision by a man with a gun not to kill me. My experience is no different than thousands (Tens of thousands? Hundreds of Thousands?) Black Americans. Clearly, the system is f'uped up.
Obviously, not an MQA thing, *just* a life thing
maybe more important....