The first time I heard vocalist Cyrille Aimee on an album, I thought she was from the Midwest, as her diction, dialect and sense of swing seemed to have come right out of the Kay Starr-Mildred Bailey school of hot jazz. What a shock to see her in concert at the Blue Whale with her Gaul-derived team of Adrien Mognard/ag, Michael Valeano/eg, Shawn Conley/b and Dani Danor/dr to discover that Ms Aimee’s heart and soul is from France, while her pulse is firmly planted in American roots.
With a crystal clear tone and sense of time reminiscent of Anita O’Day, Ms Aimee glistened over the steady two-stepped pulse of the rhythm on an irresistibly paced “Where Or When” while the guitars exchanged lines as Cyrille lilted in French lyrics over the cheerful “You’re Handsome, You Know That.” The mix of American Blues and bohemia was in full force as the strings bent and snapped as Aimee sang and scatted with sizzle and style on “I Live Alone and I Like It” while she delved into her familial Dominican Republic roots on a starry-eyed “Estrellitas y Duendes.”
The perfect sauce of jazz from the Roaring Twenties as well as a gypsy caravan made the crisp “Three Little Words” taste like a Nathan’s Famous wrapped in a baguette. Aimee’s duo with Conley delivered a reading of “It Could Happen To You” that had a beat that bounced like Kate Upton while the whole team showed it’s moxie by mixing Afro Cuban with Rive Gauche on a soulful and funky read of Michael Jackson’s “Off The Wall.”
A pastoral “Lazy Afternoon” had Aimee and company deliver impressionistic images with French pastels, closing the set that made you feel as if you had just spent the evening in an acoustic version of a Seurat painting. A rare mix of old, new, borrowed and blue made for a wonderful marriage of sounds this Thursday night.
Upcoming shows at The Blue Whale include Bennie Maupin 06/17, John Patitucci 06/25 Jure Pukl 06/29 and Josh Nelson-Danny Green 06/30