small girl
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Music
Press
"the spirit of Joe Cocker reincarnated in the body of Betty Boop" - Martin Morrow, Calgary Herald
On her second album, Aliza Amihude's teamed up with the likes of pianist/producer Jeff Presslaff, bassist Gilles Fournier and drummers Daniel Roy and Kelly Marques to create an ironically self-aware collection of not-quite-torch-songs featuring off-the-wall lyrics set to impressively musical backing tracks. The cumulative effect is not unlike a bizarro version of Sesame Street, as Amihude sings about eating properly (I Love Me), herself and her tribulations (Small Girl) and deconstructionist theory (The Perspring Song), among other things. At times she sounds like a cross between Lene Lovich and Nina Hagen, but she's never shrill nor overwrought and her ace band provides just the right sense of dramatic timing.
— John Kendle - Uptown Magazine
"vamping piano-based tunes are the stock-in-trade of Aliza Amihude...and reveal her to be a theatrical presence with a sound that is almost a throwback to the day of smoky cocktail lounges, silver lame backdrops, and singers in shimmering evening gowns and long black gloves" - John Kendle, Uptown Magazine
"vamping piano-based tunes are the stock-in-trade of Aliza Amihude...and reveal her to be a theatrical presence with a sound that is almost a throwback to the day of smoky cocktail lounges, silver lame backdrops, and singers in shimmering evening gowns and long black gloves" - John Kendle, Uptown Magazine
"Amihude is an endearing and voluptuously sexy stage presence" - Gilles Marchildon, Winnipeg Free Press
"Amihude is an endearing and voluptuously sexy stage presence" - Gilles Marchildon, Winnipeg Free Press
Discography
Some New Songs from a small girl - 4 song EP, 1999
small girl Laughs - 5 minute laugh track, 2001
small girl: Jazz, Blues, Burlesque - 7 song EP, 2004
small girl Big Banana - 14 song CD, 2007
Photos
Bio
Aliza Amihude and Jeff Presslaff form the heart of small girl.
Out of ~10,000 entries, 4 small girl songs placed in the top 500 and 2 placed in the top 1500 in the 16th Annual Billboard World Song Contest.
small girl was born a cappella in Montreal, Canada in 1996 through improvised melodies and lyrics sung by Aliza Amihude. Since 1999, Jeff Presslaff, 2004 Manitoba Jazz Musician of the Year, has co-composed, scored, and arranged the music for piano, bass, drums, and horn.
Since their 1999 EP release, Some New Songs from a small girl, they have made life more difficult for critics and writers of liner notes as their unique music exemplifies post-modern jazz - fluid and funny; somber and sassy; seductive and serious; theatrical and technically brilliant.
Influences are Betty Carter, Louis Armstrong, Edith Piaf, Joni Mitchell, Duke Ellington, Wayne Shorter, Billie Holiday, Prince, and Jacques Brel.
small girl has performed at the Calgary Arts Centre for The 2000 High Performance Rodeo and Songwriter's Series; at the Manitoba Theatre Centre Warehouse performing their hour-long musical, small girl Chokes the Chicken in 2001; at Winnipeg Jazz Festivals; The Gas Station Theatre; and at numerous clubs in Winnipeg. Most recently, they performed on seven different stages at Burning Man 2008 in Nevada.
The stage show can be performed in English, French, or both.
All 14 original songs on the new cd: small girl, Big Banana, were written between 1997-2001 in Montreal, Jakarta, Maui, and in rural Manitoba.
They were recorded between 1999-2005 at Unity Gain, Private Ear, and Mid-Ocean recording studios in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
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