| Cyrille Aimée | |
| Birth Name: | Cyrille Aimée Daudel |
| Birth Date: | 10 August 1984 |
| Birth Place: | Samois-sur-Seine, Fontainebleau, France |
| Genre: | Jazz |
| Occupation: | Singer |
| Instrument: | Vocals |
| Label: | Mack Avenue |
Cyrille Aimée (in French si.ʁil ɛ.me/; born 10 August 1984) is a French jazz singer.[1] [2] [3]
She grew up in the French town of Samois-sur-Seine, in Fontainebleau, France. Her father is French and her mother is from the Dominican Republic.[4]
She won the Montreux Jazz Festival Competition in 2007,[5] was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2010,[6] and won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition in 2012.
Her 2019 album Move On featured cover versions of songs by Stephen Sondheim. The album received praise from Sondheim himself, and one of its songs, "Marry Me a Little", was nominated for a Grammy Award.[7] [8]
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 [stood] with one foot in tradition and the other in electronics," and 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".[9]
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."[10] Classicalite reviewer Mike Greenblatt described Aimée as "beautiful, talented, precocious, funny, cultured, with the kind of instantly-recognizable voice that has no known precedent."[11]
Aimée was also singled out for particular praise for her role in Alex Webb's music theatre piece Cafe Society Swing at New York's 59E59 Theaters in Christmas 2014, where she starred alongside vocalists Charenee Wade and Allan Harris. The show received a Critic's Pick in the New York Times.[12]