Cyrille Aimée

Cyrille Aimée (pron: SUR-real M-A, born August 10, 1984) 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." Classicalite reviewer Mike Greenblatt described Aimée as "beautiful, talented, precocious, funny, cultured, with the kind of instantly-recognizable voice that has no known precedent."

Discography

• Cyrille Aimée and the Surreal Band (2009)
• Smile (Cyrille Aimée Music, 2009) with Diego Figueriedo
• Just the Two of Us (Venus, 2010) with Diego Figueriedo
• Live at Small's (SmallsLIVE, 2010)
• Live at Birdland (Cyrillemusic, 2013)
• Burstin' Out Chicago Jazz Orchestra with Cyrille Aimée (Origin, 2013)
• It's a Good Day (Mack Avenue, 2014)
• It's Christmas on Mack Avenue (Mack Avenue, 2014) (compilation)
• Let's Get Lost (Mack Avenue, 2016)