The Tea Ceremony of Jazz

There's a saying that if you're ever asked to describe the Way of Tea then say it is the sound of windblown pines in a painting.

It's a phrase that came to mind when I went to see Melody Gardot's gig here in London at the Bloomsbury Theatre, which I know well from my student days. I've met her before when she came earlier this year to my Kundalini Yoga class one night.

Then none of us knew who she was. But we were all touched in that room by her honest open friendliness, how she really put her all into the physical side of the class and, most of all, how engaged she was in meditating deeply. It seemed a little strange that she limped and used a walking stick, while her face was filled with an easy radiance, but hey ho, that's no big deal in life, is it? A few days later I saw a podcast by the Times, recognised her photo, listened to it and was totally bowled over by her, her music and spirit.

The Bloomsbury Theatre has this great atmosphere of student-driven vitality and an intimacy almost of a relaxed club. The seats are comfy for a start - none of that stuffy, plush crushed velvet of the stalls of the old Royal Opera House, nor that Metro-style strapontin when you wonder how much longer you need to perch on this precarious patch of cloth before the final curtain. The warm-up by The Mercury Men had got us all in the mood; it all omened very well for an hour with Melody.

A girl, alone, walks onto a night-stained stage, set with the wispy trees of mike-stands. Not just any old walk, you understand. Not a catwalk walk. This is the walk of silence. She places one 4 inch spiked black heel down, slips her hips left-right-left placing the next one down, and then the next until she's at the front of the stage. Somehow the incongruousness of her confidence, the relaxed ease of knowing there's nothing to rush for, and the walking stick doesn't register. Instead it sets up an extraordinary dynamic of paradox beyond our comprehension, an atmosphere around her nothing to do with the theatre, nor us, but with the polarities of her own life experience. She stands and with the simplest gesture raises her hand. All eyes are on her. She knows it. In that moment she brings us into her world, and then up some. Click, click, click, click - she sets the rhythm over which she pours her voice alone. That's what I call presence, not stage presence. I mean the true presence of a woman who's in command of her own self, whose become a mystery because she's mastered herself.

Her mastery of her music is reflected in how well she hones it down to the essential, just like a Tea Ceremony. It has a flow, a natural rhythm born from that inner stillness she exudes. It's an understated elegance she weaves to take Jazz from Ink Blue to Ultra-Violet. As she and her spirit soared through the ethers, her trio kept us grounded and between them we were expanded into understanding another tenet of Tea: One Time One Meeting. Each time a group comes together there is an experience which touches you, and may change your perceptions forever. I knew that I was watching the birth of a diva, a Botticelli-Venus.

Much has already been made in the press about how an accident left her not only with injuries and pain but also the opportunity to heal through her music. In hearing her live, somehow we too were part of that healing, of wounds which we may not even have been aware of. That's part of the magic. It's also what gives her the gravitas to soar to heights of experience most dare not fathom. She has the courage to be free to express herself purely in purity, no nonsense, to reveal her fragility in her strength. She has the experience of dealing with pain and ecstasy of someone decades older than she, and yet she is in the flush of youth. Another Tea saying: the blossom comes to the tree aged by experience. Oh so true.

My fervent prayer is that this young, fragile woman of grace is allowed to continue to blossom and grow gracefully. It jars slightly that she's been all done up to play the vamp jazz-singer cliche, trading down her innate sexuality and vitality to the currency of sexiness, with disparaging remarks about men thrown around like loose change. It's OK but she deserves to enjoy exploring the upside of being a diva, an embodiment of grace and beauty. Next time I see her let's pray that her walk on the stage is the walk of a goddess on earth.