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Sylvia Brooks

The path that led Sylvia Brooks back to her jazz roots provided her with plenty of dramatic stories to tell. Possessing a sumptuous, velvet-rich voice, she’s earned critical raves for each of her four albums, including 2022’s Signature, which marked her emergence as a gifted songwriter. Her emotionally direct delivery imbues the music with bracing honesty and keen emotional intelligence.

Brooks came to music as a birthright. Her father, pianist/arranger Don Ippolito, was a first-call jazz accompanist who performed with giants such as Stan Getz, Buddy Rich, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan and Dizzy Gillespie. Her mother, Johanna Dordick, was a conservatory-trained opera singer who also dazzled audiences singing standards and pop tunes at East Coast night clubs and resorts (she went on to found the Los Angeles Opera Theater in 1978).

In a fateful turn of events it was the death of her father that opened the door to her love of Jazz. In looking to have several of his original pieces played at his funeral she immersed herself in her father’s extensive archive, an experience that sparked a jazz epiphany.

Brooks launched her career with her impressive 2009 debut, Dangerous Liaisons. The project gained international attention and announced the arrival of an impressive jazz chanteuse, earning a spot on Bob Parlocha’s Top 50 jazz albums of 2009.

She ventured further into the shadows on 2012’s critically-acclaimed follow-up Restless. A collaboration with Grammy Nominated Kim Richmond, the album was selected for numerous Top Ten lists by leading jazz radio stations and featured on San Francisco’s KPOO, the first Black-owned station on the West Coast.

Her third album, The Arrangement, marked a creative leap for Brooks. Singled out as one of the top jazz vocal albums of the year by veteran producer and jazz historian Arnaldo Desouteiro, the 2017 project featured a dazzling cast of arrangers who designed bespoke charts tailored for Brooks’ voice. The selections are mostly from the Great American Songbook. She also wrote lyrics for three originals in collaboration with different composers, including “Maybe I’m a Fool” with the late Patrick Williams, the prolific composer/arranger who accrued 16 Grammy nominations, two Grammy Awards, four Emmys, a 1980 Oscar nomination and a 1976 Pulitzer Prize nomination.

In many ways 2022’s Signature was a logical next step toward defining herself as an artist. In writing her own songs, Brooks has clearly found her voice as an artist. Ace pianists Tom Ranier, Christian Jacob and Jeff Colella designed beguiling, harmonically rich settings for her incisive lyrics. One of L.A.’s most sought after studio musicians, Tom Ranier has toured with some of the biggest stars in jazz and popular music. As musical director he has worked with Barbra Streisand and Tony Bennett on tour, and accompanied Bennett and Lady Gaga on the Grammy Award-winning album Love For Sale.

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Album Review

Sylvia Brooks: The Arrangement

Read "The Arrangement" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Vocalist Sylvia Brooks likes to provide her music a noir patina, that smoky and dark evening tone preferred by the likes of the fictional hard men: Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Jeff Markham. On her third recording, The Arrangement, this patina is given a high buff shine into something more contemporary, without losing any of the inherent sexiness of the music and its delivery. The Arrangement is a delicious double entendre on the word “arrangement," juxtaposing the darker side of ...

4
Album Review

Sylvia Brooks: Restless

Read "Restless" reviewed by Jim Olin


Part the curtains and turn on the Klieg lights for singer Sylvia Brooks, whose second album, Restless, has the widescreen scope and orchestral sweep of a theatrical production. In fact, the record has the overall feel of a soundtrack for a film yet to be made. However, the kind of Hollywood movie this music recalls is certainly not of modern origin; rather, Brooks is paying homage to the film noir classics of the '40s and '50s. In terms of her ...

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Take Five With...

Take Five With Sylvia Brooks

Read "Take Five With Sylvia Brooks" reviewed by AAJ Staff


The content of this article has been updated since its 2009 publish date. Meet Sylvia Brooks: Since the release of her captivating debut, 2009's Dangerous Liaisons, jazz vocalist Sylvia Brooks has displayed a gift for inhabiting different personas, with a subspecialty in film-noir inspired femmes fatale. On her fourth album, Signature, she embraces the most challenging role of all, defining herself with a set of beautifully crafted original songs. Her evocative lyrics and emotionally direct delivery imbue the ...

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Recording

Recording Artist And Songwriter Sylvia Brooks' anticipated Release 'Signature' On May 30th!

Recording Artist And Songwriter Sylvia Brooks' anticipated Release 'Signature' On May 30th!

Source: Scott Thompson Public Relations

Since her captivating debut in 2009, jazz vocalist Sylvia Brooks has displayed a gift for inhabiting different personas, with a subspecialty in film-noir inspired femmes fatale. On this—Signature (Rhombus Records)—her fourth album, she embraces the most challenging role of all, defining herself with a set of beautifully crafted original songs. Her evocative lyrics and emotionally direct delivery imbue the music with hard-won authenticity. Whether looking back with wry affection on her walk-on-the-wild-side youth or lamenting a lost love, Brooks brings ...

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Award / Grant

"The Arrangement" By Sylvia Brooks Named Jazz Vocal CD Of The Month by Jazz Station / Arnaldo Desouteiro

"The Arrangement" By Sylvia Brooks Named Jazz Vocal CD Of The Month by Jazz Station / Arnaldo Desouteiro

Source: Michael Bloom Media Relations

From Jazz Noir to Technicolor, jazz vocalist Sylvia Brooks reveals a vivid array of new emotional hues on her third album, The Arrangement, a beautifully intimate collaboration with the talents of brilliant Los Angeles arrangers. Besides beautiful originals ("Maybe I'm A Fool," “Sweet Surrender," “What Was I Thinking," three inspired songs to which she contributed as lyricist), Brooks offers surprising renditions of “Body And Soul" (with a beautiful flugel solo by Ron Stout) and “Cold Cold Heart", along with haunting ...

3

Recording

From Jazz Noir to Technicolor, Jazz Vocalist Sylvia Brooks Reveals a Vivid Array of New Emotional Hues on her Gorgeous Third Album, "The Arrangement"

From Jazz Noir to Technicolor, Jazz Vocalist Sylvia Brooks Reveals a Vivid Array of New Emotional Hues on her Gorgeous Third Album, "The Arrangement"

Source: Michael Bloom Media Relations

With her first two critically acclaimed albums, jazz vocalist Sylvia Brooks introduced a sensuous jazz-noir sound redolent of femme fatales and tough guys, crooked deals and deep-shadowed urban nightscapes. But no great artist wants to be typecast, and with her third album, The Arrangement, she steps out of the mist and fog into the sunlight, where she reveals herself as a singer at home in just about any narrative. An intimate collaboration with an array of brilliant jny: Los Angeles ...

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Recording

Sylvia Brooks Explores The Noir Side Of Jazz In New CD Release "Restless"

Sylvia Brooks Explores The Noir Side Of Jazz In  New CD Release "Restless"

Source: Sylvia Brooks

LOS ANGELES, CA: Acclaimed jazz vocalist Sylvia Brooks returns with her second genre-busting release Restless, exploring the hungers that haunt us, the passions that drive us and the compulsions that send us careening deliciously close to the edge of the abyss. Initial discussions with arranger and producer Kim Richmond brought forth several ideas. “I wanted to take a set of songs—this set of songs—and give them more of an urban, street-like feel.” Recalling an incident several years ago that saw ...

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Recording

Vocalist Sylvia Brooks Releases "Dangerous Liaisons"

Vocalist Sylvia Brooks Releases "Dangerous Liaisons"

Source: Michael Ricci

Some music you listen to, some music you feel. Be it smoky and sensual or fiery and fierce, we all recognize the instant when our breaths catch, our pulses race, and our hearts know. In compiling Dangerous Liaisons, Sylvia Brooks has said “I don’t feel I chose these songs, but that they’ve chosen me.” And she may very well be right. Growing up in Miami, hearing her mother sing at the Eden Roc and Fountain Bleu, and listening as her ...

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Recording

Jazz Vocalist Sylvia Brooks to Bring the Glamour Back with Debut CD Release "Dangerous Liaisons"

Jazz Vocalist Sylvia Brooks to Bring the Glamour Back with Debut CD Release "Dangerous Liaisons"

Source: Michael Ricci

"If you’ve never heard her perform, you’re missing one of the Southland’s great talents" --Gorgeous Magazine LOS ANGELES, CA. Singer and actor Sylvia Brooks is set to thrill listeners with the release of Dangerous Liaisons, her debut full-length CD featuring a collection of songs that stretches from the palm-lined causeway connecting Miami to Palm Island and its famed Latin Quarter, to New York City’s Harlem and the legendary Cotton Club. The roadmap of Sylvia’s musical tastes began to come almost ...

All About Jazz- C. Michael Bailey Vocalist Sylvia Brooks likes to provide her music a noir patina, that smoky and dark evening tone preferred by the likes of the fictional hard men: Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Jeff Markham. On her third recording, The Arrangement, this patina is given a high buff shine into something more contemporary, without losing any of the inherent sexiness of the music and its delivery. The Arrangement is a delicious double entendre on the word "arrangement," juxtaposing the darker side of love with a play on "arrangement," here meaning the musical arrangement of the 14 selections contained herein

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Sylvia Brooks Live...

Rhombus Records
2024

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Signature

Rhombus Records
2022

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The Arrangement

SBM Music
2017

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Restless

SBM Music
2012

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Dangerous Liaisons

Maxi Trax Records
2009

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Your Heart Is As Black As Night

From: Signature
By Sylvia Brooks

Eleanor Rigby

From: The Arrangement
By Sylvia Brooks

Round Midnight

From: Restless
By Sylvia Brooks

Harlem Nocturne

From: Dangerous Liaisons
By Sylvia Brooks

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