Melissa Stott was born in England in 1972 to a Singaporean-Chinese mother and an English father. Her formal piano training began at the age of 6 and she went on to receive a diploma when she was 18, but it was in the years prior to this that her informal ear training started, thanks to her father, a church organist and jazz pianist. Melissa hummed harmonies to just about everything she heard and later, after her younger sister was born, they would sing in three-part harmony at home and in church. During her school years, spent in UK and Singapore, Melissa played the cello and the Welsh folk harp, encouraged by her music teacher Lorna Wareham, who gave Melissa one-to-one tuition in harmony, counterpoint and composition. She also took part in various choral activities and earned a role in the school's 'Barbershop choir' (previously all-male) as a tenor. Melissa continued to be active in the musical environment during her years at Kent University, and after a period of time spent in London and in Scandinavia, touring as an actress with a theatre-in-education company, Melissa decided to move to Italy and there slipped into the jazz scene " A lot of the tunes were familiar from musicals I'd done it was all very informal and relaxed," she recalls,"and I finally felt that I'd found my music" Her first ever jazz record was of Ella Fitzgerald with Ellis Larkin at the piano and her early jazz education came from recordings of Bill Evans, Clifford Brown, Fats Navarro, Red Garland and Billie Holiday, among others.
The beginning of 2003 saw Melissa on tour with American pianist Greg Burk's trio. Burk is a former student of Paul Bley, Archie Shepp and Yusef Lateef and the line-up includes the New York bassist Jon Robinson and Gerald Cleaver on the drums.
Melissa's sultry sound is filled with nostalgia, and reminds one of the big band swing era, with a touch of blues mixed in for good measure. Reviving old standards, sometimes with the often-neglected verse, is what she loves. "For me, getting the mood across is fundamental. I find it difficult to get into a song if I don't understand it, both harmonically and as far as the lyric is concerned."
