Nicole Ratté - When Somebody Thinks You're Wonderful (2010)

This album contains beautiful surprises. For this first CD, Nicole Ratté has chosen a happy, warm and tender ambiance. Surrounded with astounding musicians, she goes from one style to the other while keeping a consistent sound from start to finish, creating an overall relaxed atmosphere.

For this recording project, Nicole was surrounded with long time collaborators: her pianist, Jean-Pierre Allain, wrote most of the arrangements while her bassist and sound engineer also co-produced the album. Thus the relaxed atmosphere!

Who is Nicole?
A musician and singer since childhood, Nicole Ratté evolved in different styles before developing a true passion for jazz. At home on the stage, she is known for her warm and effervescent presence and her light and sensual voice. Her performances include her favourite jazz standards, with some special arrangements of well known French and Quebec songs.

After a childhood full of music, from classical piano to rock guitar and from church organ to flute ensemble, she studied piano and cello. Since then, she has been involved in several musical and vocal groups. She performed leading roles in the vocal group Top Passion, a producer of musicals on the Gatineau (Québec) scene, and sang in several small vocal ensembles, such as the a cappella jazz quintet “C’est What?” (from Manhattan Transfer to Take 6), which began her passion for jazz. She has coordinated and taken part in numerous musical projects over the years with symphonic orchestras, concerts bands, big bands and many others.

Nicole has studied vocal technique and jazz interpretation with several teachers from Gatineau/Ottawa/Toronto (Jo-Anne Donoghue, Elise Letourneau, Tena Palmer) and has participated in workshops given by Julie Michels, Peter Eldridge (NY), Kate Hammet-Vaughen (Vancouver), Sheila Jordan (NY) and Jay Clayton (Seattle), Janet Lawson (NY), Giacomo Gates (NY) and Barry Harris (NY) .

Nicole also teaches vocal jazz, piano and voice with her communicative enthusiasm. Her jazz workshops are now generating new jazz vocalists and new jazz fans.