Review: Cyrille Aimée & Band Make Their Gig a Party at Birdland

There was a lot of joy on the Birdland stage when versatile Cyrille Aimée and a six-piece band entertained.  The program was informed by her eclectic influences, interests, skills, and background:  The sweet-voiced songstress was raised in a town near Paris, where she was exposed to the “Gypsy” style of jazz through the annual festivals celebrating musician Django Reinhardt and she also heard songs introduced to her by her mother, who was born in the Dominican Republic, and classics recorded by Ella Fitzgerald. After her years as an NYC resident, New Orleans was where she made her home and she recently built a home, constructing her own house in Costa Rica where she’d bought land – hunkering down there and creating the material for her oft-mentioned, much represented new album, à Fleur de Peau, a French expression that means something that is close to the skin. 

Much of the talk was focused on that new recording, with not-so-earthshaking facts such as which was the first to be written or recorded. Maybe it was TMI to reveal nonchalantly that “This is a song I wrote after I peed on my phone” (which prompted her to decide to live without a phone for months).  Jake Sherman – the album’s producer and main instrumentalist — was in the house, called up for just one number to take over at the piano.  

The New Orleans impact is evident in the celebrational moods, with Cyrille Aimée frequently in motion – dancing as much as one can on a crowded stage, her shoulders going up and down, her whole body grooving with the rhythms and solos of the band.  The red-hot musicians get much focus, and some selections feature instrumental passages as voluminously as the vocals, in the language choice of the moment or in the “universal” language of “wordless” syllables with applause-generating gymnastic scat-singing. The vocalist can sound like a seventh instrument in that way and also happens to play baritone ukulele and acoustic guitar, with a little kazoo-playing for good-humored good measure on one number.  A couple of the musicians chime in here and there and the audience is invited to sing along on one number with a simple, short melody line and the easy-to-remember lyric of “ooh-ooh-oon-ooh-ooh.”         

My somewhat rusty retention of my high school French got me only so far with some items I hadn’t heard before – but, in addition to the  Aimée originals, there were two classic, decades-old items in that language that were very familiar, yet taken to unfamiliar territory.  While many have sung it with pure drama, in a mournful manner with only tentative hope for a happy ending, “Ne me quitte pas” by Jacques Brel was alive and well-drenched with celebrational assumption of a happy ending, while still giving appropriate caution to the fragile character of the pleading in the lyric which translates as “Don’t leave me,” although the English lyric title became “If You Go Away.” And the Piaf signature “La vie en rose” also ramped up the rose-colored glasses viewpoint and energy, with extended solos by band members in a major party mood suitable for a Mardi Gras whoop-up. They were wild, but wonderfully wild.  Nevertheless, I would have liked another true ballad or two by this multifaceted artist.  (Her Sondheim album from a few years ago is especially enchanting, bringing freshness to the well-traversed material.)  Sensitivity came in a couple of rarer quiet moments.  Humor was prominently present in the 95-year-old tale of a romantic break-up, in which the one is asked the musical question “Can’t We Be Friends?” – but this time with the title line sung mockingly and later replaced (with artistic license) by “It’s not you. It’s me.” The humor was welcome and, even if some of the new-to-our-ears original material might not feel instantly accessible, the singer and band were certainly welcome, too, as the audience at Tuesday’s late set demonstrated by the attention and applause.  The engagement runs through April 27 at Birdland, with two shows per night.

A big bravo to the band: Wayne Tucker (trumpet); Julian Lee (sax); Michael Valeanu (guitar); Mathis Picard (piano); Pedro Segundo (percussion); Tamir Shmerling (bass).  

Tickets to the rest of the run are available on Birdland's website.

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