With her debut album Worrisome Heart, Melody Gardot displayed her instinctive gift for transforming the traditions of jazz and blues with “her personal kiss of life.” But even her most ardent admirers will be amazed at the giant creative leap forward she has taken with the follow-up, My One And Only Thrill. Mixing Latin rhythms, finger-snapping blues and deep, smoldering torch songs, it’s an album that seems to have been shaped from several lifetimes of love, loss and longing. Though she’s still only in her early twenties, the rapturous reception accorded to Worrisome Heart by fans and critics meant that she suddenly found her life moving at triple speed, as Melody and her band bounced between gigs, hotels and airports as demand blossomed across several continents.

“We were touring for nine months, though sometimes I’d have a week off if I was lucky,” she explains, in between bites of sushi. “But in reality, I never really had time ‘off’ because I was making the new record in between touring. That process was daunting, but beautiful too, because it gave me the opportunity to work and think, and work and think again, so I could reflect back rather than having to make constant snap decisions. It was an interesting way to approach making a record.”

Despite her exacting schedule, she made sure that her plans for My One And Only Thrill had been painstakingly laid.