Roger Cicero

Biography

Roger Marcel Cicero Ciceu (born July 6, 1970 in Berlin, died March 24, 2016 in Hamburg) was a German jazz musician and the son of the Romanian pianist Eugen Cicero. He made his first appearance at the age of eleven supporting German singer Helen Vita. He appeared on television for the first time aged 16, alongside the RIAS-Tanzorchester, then under the direction of Horst Jankowski. Cicero joined the Hohner Conservatory in Trossingen when he was 18, where he received coaching in piano, guitar an...

Roger Marcel Cicero Ciceu (born July 6, 1970 in Berlin, died March 24, 2016 in Hamburg) was a German jazz musician and the son of the Romanian pianist Eugen Cicero.

He made his first appearance at the age of eleven supporting German singer Helen Vita. He appeared on television for the first time aged 16, alongside the RIAS-Tanzorchester, then under the direction of Horst Jankowski. Cicero joined the Hohner Conservatory in Trossingen when he was 18, where he received coaching in piano, guitar and singing. Between 1989 and 1992, he appeared alongside the Horst Jankowski Trio, the Eugen Cicero Trio (his father’s group) as well as with the Bundesjugendjazzorchester (German Youth Jazz Orchestra), which was then directed by Peter Herbolzheimer. From 1991 to 1996 he studied jazz singing at the Amsterdam Academy of Arts (Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten) at Hilversum. Since then, he has been a guest singer with the groups Jazzkantine and Soulounge with whom he took part in the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 2003 he founded the Roger Cicero Quartet, as well as continuing to perform with his eleven-piece big band. His style is predominantly that of 1940s and 1950s swing music, combined with German lyrics.

In 2006, Cicero was involved with the album Good Morning Midnight by jazz pianist Julia Hülsmann, and released his first solo album Männersachen in May of the same year. Working alongside thirteen composers (predominantly Matthias Haß and Frank Ramond), his music has an unusual composition. "Schieß mich doch zum Mond" is the German version of Frank Sinatra’s classic "Fly Me to the Moon". The covered track "Zieh die Schuh aus" ("Take your shoes off"), which deals ironically with the battle of the sexes, reached number 71 in the German singles chart. The album Männersachen made it to number 3.

Cicero was Germany's participant for the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki but only made it to No. 19. With his song Frauen regier'n die Welt (Women rule the world) he won the preliminary decision in a competition against Monrose and Heinz Rudolf Kunze. Although he won with Frauen regier'n die Welt it peaked only at number 7 and stayed one week in the Top-10 and left very quickly the Top-30 in just four weeks.

On March 29, 2016 it became public that Cicero had died of stroke induced complications on March 24th. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.