Cyrille Aimée

Short Biography

Cyrille Aimée (pron: SUR-real M-A) is a French jazz singer based in Brooklyn known for rhythmic songs with roots in jazz and gypsy styles. She won the Montreux Jazz Festival Competition in 2007, was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2010, and won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition in 2012. She grew up in the French town of Samois-sur-Seine, in Fontainebleau, France. Her father was French and her mother was from the Dominican Republic. New York Times music reviewer Stephen Holden described Aimée as a blend of Michael Jackson and Sarah Vaughan and wrote that the "saucy, curly-haired jazz singer with one foot in tradition and the other in electronics, " and wrote that her voice had a "tart, girlish chirp" and that her Surreal Band fused traditional and futuristic electronics with textures mixing jazz and funk. New York Times reviewer Nate Chinen wrote that she had a "sweet, girlish voice that she controls with a sniper's precision". Star-Ledger reviewer Ronni Reich described her sound as "instantly recognizable" with a "soft, girlish buzz with a touch of an Edith Piaf-like quaver." Reviewer John Fordham in The Guardian wrote that she is a "subtle and articulate vocalist" who is "light-stepping, casually fluent and persuasive" and sometimes "coolly understated in a soft glide."