Sylvia Brooks – A Jazz Singer & Vocalist

All About Jazz describes Brooks as a “Master Stylist.” With her new live album, Sylvia Brooks Live with Christian Jacob, one understands why.

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 five albums.

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 in 2012’s critically acclaimed follow-up Restless. 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. 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.

Her fourth album 2022’s Signature, marked her emergence as a gifted songwriter.

With her current album Sylvia Brooks Live with Christian Jacob Brooks provides both a snapshot of an artist in full command and a revelatory index of the distance she’s traveled since her first recording. Pianist Christian Jacob, Brooks’ musical director and collaborator is one of the most respected accompanists and composers on the international scene today. Garnering nine Grammy Award nominations, he has also composed several scores for two Clint Eastwood films (Sully and the 15:17 to Paris). Revisiting songs she’s been performing since she launched her jazz career, Brooks leans into the evolution of her interpretations, while drawing the audience into her musical realm.

Sylvia Brooks Live with Christian Jacob proves that Jazz is very much alive and well.

Sylvia Brooks Live with Christian Jacob
Sylvia Brooks Writing New Songs

Sylvia Brooks, a child of jazz with stories to tell

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 showrooms 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.

A seven-time Grammy Award nominee, Christian Jacob created the original score for Clint Eastwood’s 2016 box-office smash Sully and Eastwood’s film The 15:17 to Paris. Jeff Colella has accompanied many of the era’s defining singers, including Morgana King, Dolly Parton, Anita O’Day and the late, legendary Lou Rawls, with whom he toured for 16 years as pianist and conductor that ended with Rawl’s death.

Clearly, Brooks is keeping company with the Southland’s most creative accompanists. Rather than returning to the torch songs and film-noir inspired standards that defined her early repertoire, she realized that she wanted to embrace an array of musical idioms. “I love Latin influenced music, big band swing, and rich ballads,” she said. “I want to explore the whole spectrum musically.” It’s a quest that has already delivered the musical goods, and that promises treasures to come.

About Sylvia Brooks