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Mo Award Winner
(Jazz Vocalist of the Year) 2001, 2003
"Oh yeah. She's really cool!"
Kurt Elling, Fremantle Voice, Jan. 2002
"…an exceptional singer who, if recording on the label owned by a conglomerate and with the aggressive worldwide promotional support, would gather a great deal of attention she deserves as an original and inspiring Jazz artist."
Cadence Magazine (USA), June 2003
"Michelle Nicolle has no peer as a jazz singer in Australia." June 23, 2001
"Australian jazz singing doesn't come any better than this." Feb. 2003
Kevin Jones, The Weekend Australian
"..an album that confirms Nicolle's place as Australia's best jazz singer."
Kenny Weir, Sunday Herald Sun, June 3, 2001 (After the Rain review)
"..I can think of no one else who finds, in the modern jazz repertoire, such a sense of pure song."
Gilbert Haisman, Evening Post, New Zealand, October 20, 2001
Arranger, band leader and award-winning jazz vocalist Michelle Nicolle started her musical career when she began studying the violin at the age of eight in the famous wine region, Barossa Valley, South Australia in the 1970s. Now based in Melbourne, she is rapidly becoming known as Australia's finest jazz singer.
As a country girl Michelle grew up listening to popular music and old movie tunes, playing in the Barossa Valley Schools Orchestra, and teaching herself to play the Angaston Town Hall’s grand piano ~ whilst her father worked, polishing the dance floor. Throughout High School, music continued to dominate Nicolle's life. She moved up the ranks of the Orchestra, kept 'nutting out' pop tunes on the piano (by Prince and Duran Duran!!), blew 3rd cornet in a local marching band and sang in every choir on offer .
In 1985 Michelle was accepted into the Adelaide University's Bachelor of Education Secondary Music course - playing the violin.
Surprisingly, Michelle says she didn’t develop an interest in jazz until 1986 when she started singing with the university Adelaide Connection Jazz Choir. Hearing for the first time about Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Chet Baker, Michelle soon immersed herself in their music- deciding that this was the music that her heart wanted to follow. In 1987 she swapped her major to "Jazz Voice".
She began transcribing off records the great horn players Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie - learning the language of improvisation through chord changes. When she completed her teaching degree, Michelle went on to study for her Associate Diploma of Jazz at the Elder Conservatorium, where she "got into be-bop in a big way!" These two years, Michelle says, were probably the most important of her musical life as they laid the foundations for her wanting to make a career in playing jazz.
Several musical ventures, including the 5-piece vocal group
Vo-Cool and her own quintet, followed. Tours to festivals around the country, and gigs in Melbourne's jazz clubs introduced Michelle to the broader Australian jazz scene.
In 1995 Michelle Nicolle moved to Melbourne to live and to further her music career.
At the 1998 Wangaratta International Jazz Festival Michelle won the prestigious National Jazz Award ~ the judges included the legendary be-bop singer Sheila Jordon (USA), current Blue Note star Kurt Elling (USA).
"This year's winner was Melbourne singer Michelle Nicolle, whose unaffected demeanour was as disarming as her exceptional technique. A beautiful voice; a courageous, risk-taking approach - she deserved to win."
The Age Nov.'98
Put simply Michelle Nicolle is a jazz musician whose chosen instrument is voice.
Leading her band with a quiet dignity, Nicolle’s apparent ease at clever, difficult, and varied improvisation, bring to mind the skills of singers like Betty Carter, Mel Torme or Ella Fitzgerald. But this exceptionally talented woman sounds like none of those singers. What she does hold in common is being true to her artistic self, having an incredible ‘ear’ as well as being a serious jazz musician and lyricist. Her clear tone and impressive breath control indicate hard work and dedication to her art form.
In 2000 her quartet were nominated for Australian Music Foundation's Best Live Jazz Act and Michelle was the recipient the Australian entertainment industry's Mo Award -Jazz Vocalist of the Year 2001 and 2003.
CD Releases:
Michelle's debut CD, Misterioso,(Newmarket Music 1998) was warmly received by audiences and critics:
"......formidable technique and a staggering range......more interesting than most other jazz vocalists in the country. *** Rolling Stone
In May 2001 her second CD After the Rain (ABC/Universal) was released, and in September named a Finalists for the ARIA Awards Best Jazz Album:
"This is the best album by an Australian jazz singer I have heard in more than a decade of reviewing music."
Kevin Jones, The Weekend Australian, 2001
"she [Nicolle] is in command….an intelligent program and superb accompaniment" Adrian Jackson, The Bulletin
The 3rd release (November 2002) for the Michelle Nicolle Quartet, keep your heart right (Newmarket Music) is a live concert recording. This August it was one of three finalists in the inaugural Bell Awards for jazz-vocal album of the year.
"Australian singer Michelle Nicolle solidifies her reputation, at least within her native country, as an inspiring singer of undoubted fortitude - one whose subtlety belies the difficulty of her work." Bill Donaldson Cadence Magazine (USA), June 2003
"What sets this vocal album apart is the interaction and dialogue...a razor sharp sense of timing and ever-increasing sense of rhythmic security, combined with a melodic inventiveness and capacity for risk taking." Leon Gettler, The Age, January 9, 2003
"Her handful of originals are what stand out ….she displays a talent for writing lyrics as well as singing them. "Tell The Truth", for example, rings true as something from the jazz canon yet it's all hers." Shane Nichols, Financial Review, Nov 16, 2002
National Tour 2003
In August 2003, with the assistance of a Playing Australia grant, the Michelle Nicolle Quartet toured to all corners of Australia - 17 gigs in 20 days!
They perform regularly at Melbourne's Bennett's Lane, Big House and Dizzy’s Jazz Bar. Michelle also performs with The Moovin' & Groovin' Orchestra, and makes regular national TV appearances on Bert Newton's Good Morning Australia, After Midnight and ABC's The Pulse
The Michelle Nicolle Quartet has maintained the same line-up since January 1999 and it's performances include the jazz festivals:
Montsalvat 1995
Adelaide 1996
Manly Jazz Festival 1999
Queenscliff '99
Queensland Biennale '99,
Apollo Bay Music Fest, 99
Wangaratta International Jazz Festival, '98,'99,2002
New Caledonia '99
Melbourne International 1999, 2001, 2003
Glenelg Jazz Festival, 2000
Australian Jazz Festival '99,
Thredbo '99,2000,
Wellington International Jazz Festival, New Zealand, 2001
Fremantle International Jazz Festival, 2002
Barossa Valley Vintage Festival, 2003
Bellingen, 2003
and venues around Australia, Italy & Malaysia:
Starfish Club, Wine Banc, The Basement (Sydney), The Governor Hindmarsh (Adelaide) Perth Jazz Society, Brisbane Jazz Club, The Fontanonestate, (Rome), The Emporium (Kuala Lumpur)
Michelle also works as a free-lance vocalist, recording backing vocals for various artists including Charlotte Church (Just Say Hello). She can be heard on TV advertisements including: Hallmark, Mitsubishi, Honda, Lincraft, Banrock Wines. She sings 1st soprano in the symphonic chorus, The Melbourne Choral.
Michelle Nicolle holds a Bachelor of Education, an Associate Diploma of Jazz (University of Adelaide) and currently teaches vocal studies at the Victorian College of the Arts, Monash University and Adelaide's Elder Conservatorium.
Concert Reviews:
"Michelle Nicolle has a wonderful gift. Her superb musicality allows her to freely integrate with the instrumental ensemble, and her voice - whether she's singing an introduction, playing with the melody, delivering harmonies behind the soloist, or in full improvisatory flight - is essential to the texture of that ensemble."
Melissa Forbes, brisbanejazz.com, 15th August 2003
"Nicolle's love of music and singing has a way of wrapping itself around each tune and turning her body language into an extension of each phrase."-review of CD Launch, Trak Showroom
Jessica Nicholas, The Age, Dec.17th 2002
“Her phrasing is deliciously elastic, as is her approach to melody.......Because Nicolle approaches her material as a musician whose instrument happens to be her voice, she can interact with her colleagues in a way that less creative singers cannot.”
Jessica Nicholas, The Age, Sept. 2nd, 2002
"Michelle Nicolle has a rare flair for jazz singing…..lively ingenuity in her phrasing, interpretation, improvising and in her exploitation of her considerable range."
John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald, May 5th, 2002
"Thoroughly entertaining…the vocal pyrotechnics were breathtaking, yet they arrived only because the shape of the music demanded climatic exuberance."
Evening Post, New Zealand, Oct, 2001 Wellington International Jazz Fest.
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