Who says TV’s all bad? Certainly not singer/songwriter Melody Gardot, who saw sales of her second and latest release, My One and Only Thrill, shoot through the proverbial roof following a recent appearance on CBS Sunday Morning. “In one day,” her publicist reports, “Gardot sold more than 10 times the previous week’s sales, taking the top four spots on the iTunes jazz chart, and reaching No. 3 on iTunes overall, as well as No. 1 on Amazon. Gardot’s success continues beyond the United States, selling over 850,000 copies in Europe, going double platinum in France and topping the charts there (ahead of the Black Eyed Peas), as well as in the U.K., Sweden, Japan, and Norway, just to name a few. To date, Gardot has sold over one million albums worldwide.”

So, yes, the career of the leggy blonde who graced our Spring 2009 cover would seem to be unfolding in winning fashion. In addition to the evidence mentioned above, My One and Only Thrill has received a wealth of mostly glowing reviews, been nominated for three Grammy awards (“Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist,” “Best Engineered Album, Non Classical” and “Producer of the Year, Non-Classical”) and been voted Best Jazz Album of 2009 by the London Times. Arguably none of those Grammy nominations have anything to do with Gardot, per se (though they do reflect favorably on the work of arranger Vince Mendoza, engineers Helik Hadar and Al Schmitt, and producer Larry Klein) and, by the reckoning of most jazz aficionados, My One and Only Thrill is far from the best jazz album of 2009. Still, like Norah Jones’ early outings, it’s a pleasant, inoffensive record by a young woman still very much in the process of developing her voice and chops. In short, Gardot’s good and getting better. And — again, like early Jones — she’s beginning to get very, very popular.

The compelling profile we ran of Gardot marked the singer’s first appearance of note in a national magazine, jazz or otherwise. The story revisits the terrible accident that eventually led to Gardot becoming a professional musician — even as the effects of the accident continued to linger. It’s a compelling story told in unblinking fashion by the richly talented writer Kara Manning. To read it, go here.