Sometimes you hear a record and take a chance on a new artist in concert, and you get pleasantly surprised.
It happened with Norah Jones. It happened with Adele. And it happened with Kandace Springs. But those three singers had credible publicists who lobbied on their behalf.
No publicist called to tout Cyrille Aimee's debut at the Dakota. I saw her name on the club's schedule and dutifully listened to her latest album, "Move On," which piqued my curiosity to check her out on Wednesday.
What an unexpected treat this French-born, New York-educated, New Orleans-based jazz singer turned out to be.
She had the nuanced phrasing of Billie Holiday, the adventurous scatting of Ella Fitzgerald and the chatty charm of Nellie McKay. She's a refreshingly skilled and uncommonly extroverted jazz singer.
Aimee's repertoire was wide ranging, including Stephen Sondheim reimagined as jazz, Jacques Brel (in French, of course), a Helen Humes blues and some originals including "Down," a solo number done with a looping machine. Ed Sheeran has nothing on her.
The 35-year-old singer's voice sounded girlish and smallish at times, but her instincts suggested technique, experience and an alluring playfulness. Her lengthy scat excursions earned deserved whoops and whistles. Particularly impressive was her trading improvised scat licks with pianist Ryan Hanseler.
Like the highly celebrated Grammy-winning young jazz vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant, Aimee has won vocal competitions (though she lost out to Salvant at the 2010 Thelonious Monk contest).
