On her new album Signature, Sylvia Brooks voice is both lighter in weight and darker in color – a paradox, I know. There is more jazz and bluesy feeling early on with a deep searching for the meaning of the words. I’m intrigued by her lyrics. “The Boy That Lived There” is quite moving, and I can only wonder what led her to write “Red Velvet Rope”, about the goings-on behind the doors of those Miami nightclubs. There is a lot of lived-in heartbreak in the lyrics, and the record gets moodier and more subdued down the stretch before Leonard Cohen’s Boogie Street picks up the tempo while maintaining the downbeat mood as the last cut. The sound quality on this record is excellent.
Sylvia has come into her own with this album and her writing brings this project to a new level. I highly recommend it.
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 bracing honesty and poise to the material.
Sylvia Brooks shares her life moments and how she started with Jazz music and eventually evolved as a Jazz Vocalist and Songwriter. Sylvia shared her experience working on her 4th Jazz album “Signature” which is coming out on May 30th 2022.
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 bracing honesty and poise to the material.
