Recording artist Sylvia Brooks has starred on the stages of many of the country's most respected theatres, performing the gamut from Shakespeare to American drama, to music theatre--to sold out performances. Now Ms. Brooks is taking an entirely different direction, and has just released her first album.
For the last two years, she has been involved in a serious collaboration with some of Los Angeles' best musicians. Together, they are bringing new and original arrangements to the Great American Songbook and timeless jazz classics. “This album is filled with the music and songs I grew up hearing as a child,” says Brooks. “But it is only now that I finally feel that I can do justice to this great music. It has taken time, and now life has led me to this place. We have developed this project in rehearsal and in a number of performances at The Jazz Bakery, The Catalina Bar & Grill and M Bar. Those performances garnered Brooks and her musicians six Critic's Choice picks in the Los Angeles Times Calendar under Jazz and World Artists.
No stranger to Jazz, Brooks was born and raised in Miami, and grew up in a musical family. Her father, a well-known jazz pianist, arranged, composed and played for such luminaries as Peggy Lee, Stan Getz, Dizzie Gillespie, Sarah Vaughn and Harry James. Her mother sang at the Eden Roc and Fountain Bleu, and the Playboy Club Circuit opening for Jimmy Durante, Rodney Dangerfield and others. She went on to become artistic director of a major opera company, and produced many seasons of opera.
At a young age, Brooks was invited to study classical theatre at the prestigious American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in San Francisco, which led to her invitation to join the Company, followed by a growing career of performances with numerous companies. Her experience as a serious actor can be found in her singing, bringing new insights into every song. “This music speaks to me,” she says. “It is timeless, yet it is so fresh and new there is always something to discover in it. The great singers of the past didn't just sing -- they took you on a journey. They embodied each song with passion and brought their lives to the music. Sadly, it has become a lost art form; I want to bring it back to life.”
As one critic said, “It's as if Brooks has lived this music; she and her musicians share an understanding of just what it is saying. I felt that I was actually hearing many of these songs for the first time. They take you on a journey, and bring something innovative and alive to the stage. Sylvia Brooks is definitely here; and that is a great thing.
Sylvia Brooks and Band at Catalina Jazz Club
LA Weekly by Marilyn Fuss
Sylvia Brooks, directed by Tom Garvin on piano, and backed by Chris Colangello on bass, Kendall Kay on drums, Kim Richmond on sax and flute, and Jamie Havorka on trumpet, performed not so much a concert as dramatic musical monologues of some tasteful 20th Century standards, laced with pop-Latin pieces that may never have been lent such authority before. In the hands of this singer and this group, each song is part of a series of musical vignettes on the theme of the uneven playing field of love. One of the first songs to engage the seasoned and enthusiastic audience at Catalina's that Wednesday was “The Man That Got Away,” a favorite vehicle for Judy Garland, written by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin.
Ms. Brooks' voice has a wide range, and her style is influenced by her background in musical theater. She elegantly and eloquently embodies the torch singer archetype, inviting comparisons to Lena Horne and Judy Garland. The band's precise rhythms complement Ms. Brooks' personalized renditions, with all elements together making the lyrics more poetic than they are usually presented as. Thus, Brooks is able to out-London Julie London's signature interpretation of, yes, “Cry Me a River” in a way that indulges the listener to do just that. The Arlen-Mercer song, “One for my Baby (And One More for the Road)” pulls the audience into the site of its little drama, not only making us suspend our disbelief, but our designated driver as well.
Duke Ellington's “Sophisticated Lady,” in other settings sometimes laborious, lives up to its potential in the voice of and characterization by Ms. Brooks. “Sway,” the 1953 hit covered by everyone, including Dean Martin and Bobby Rydell in its first decade alone, comes from a mambo called Quien Sera, written by Pablo B. Ruiz. It settles back more seriously into its Latin roots under the control of this production. Even the turn-of-the-last-century “Never Dance” (Never kiss the way that he kissed me) sounds more authentic.
In a week of festivities, Sylvia Brooks and her band carved out a drama and a sound which was its own celebration, and a high-art homage to an era which is too often merely made nostalgic.
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