Clémentine

A French jazz singer (born Sept. 23, 1963) who is best known in Japan, as "クレモンティーヌ". Started her career recording contemporary jazz for Orange Blue, a French jazz label founded by her father, Victor Mitz, alongside producer Ben Sidran, who would become a longtime collaborator. These early recordings were discovered by Sony Music in Japan, who signed her to make a series of records for the Japanese market. She experienced success in the 1990s with several singles produced in acid jazz and reggae styles, and Pierre Barouh's "Un homme et une femme" became her signature song in Japan. Her next recordings included more contemporary jazz sessions with Sidran targeting the Western market, released on Go Jazz, as well as a "trilogy" of bossa nova and MPB jazz recordings which favored emerging popularity of Brazilian music in Japan. At that time she worked with producers Eumir Deodato, Ray Hayden, Mad Professor and Jean-Paul Maunick, and also collaborated with violinist Taro Hakase and received a collaborative single in return. In the 2000s, she recorded a standards and bop album in Amsterdam, but suddenly received global recognition through a remix by French DJ Stéphane Pompougnac for the Hôtel Costes series, leading to additional collaborative singles. For the rest of the decade she recorded many releases of lighter, popular music, including full albums for the Asia market through EMI and mini-albums for Japan, as well as another album with Sidran recorded in New York City. She also re-released her "Western" material in curated and repackaged collections for Japan. In the 2010s, she returned to prominence in Japan through recording two albums of classic anime themes in bossa nova styles, featured in a Suntory TV commercial. She then released a variety of different albums on non-Sony labels, including children's music, Disney songs, and traditional Japanese music, as well as contributing cover songs to various tribute albums. She remains active in Japan, recording an ending theme for the Kizumonogatari anime film series produced by Monaca, recording duets on Maki Nomiya's Shibuya-kei albums, and performing annual concerts at The Blue Note Tokyo. She also returned to the French market, recording an electro swing album with Bart & Baker, then releasing an album simultaneously for France and Japan in 2021. Releases are found on several different labels, sometimes concurrently: - From 1988 onward, recordings made for the market outside of Japan (mostly with Sidran) were owned by Orange Blue Productions, released on Orange Blue or Go Jazz outside Japan and licensed to Sony Music in Japan (sometimes still released under the Orange Blue label). - From 1992 to 2012, recordings made for the Japanese market (whether in or outside Japan) were almost all released by Sony Music (with two releases in 2003 and 2004 on Epic). - From 2005 onward, original releases were recorded and compiled for the Asian market on EMI. - After 2012, one-off releases came out on various labels such as Anything Goes (2).