Drops: Melody Gardot, 'The Absence'

Melody Gardot turned to music as therapy as she recovered from a traffic accident that damaged her brain and fractured her pelvis and spine. It's no wonder she makes music that's therapeutic for everyone else. Gardot's new album, "The Absence" (Verve), is a soothing mix of jazz and Brazilian-tinged pop that whisks you away to an island vacation, book-ended by the lovely, delicate opener, "Mira," and the closing sing-along, "Iemanja." Even when darker moods float by, in the gorgeously sad "So We Meet Again My Heartache" and the exotic "Impossible Love," Gardot dispatches them so stylishly that the pain can't possibly last.

MELODY GARDOT "The Absence"

GRADE B+

BOTTOM LINE Sweet, soothing Brazilian-tinged pop