Jazz Times Review
08/02/10 • By Christopher Loudon
Sylvia Brooks: Dangerous Liaisons
Christopher Loudon on new album from actress/singer Sylvia Brooks
Sylvia Brooks has the look of a classic Hollywood femme fatale, suggesting an auburn-haired variation on Veronica Lake with a hint of Rita Hayworth. And Brooks sings precisely the way she looks – a dark, smoky sound with impressive firepower that seems tailor-made for the sort of plush, palm-treed nightclubs that dotted L.A. in the 1940s and ’50s. Those intimate boîtes — spots like Ciro’s, The Tally-Ho, The Encore and the richly historied Cocoanut Grove — are gone now, but Brooks is rapidly emerging as an SRO favorite at the chic venues that have replaced them, including Catalina’s, the Jazz Bakery and Vitello’s Jazz and Supper Club. Now, with the release of Brooks’ debut CD, the aptly titled Dangerous Liaisons, the wider world can share Los Angelinos’ discovery of her alluring sultriness. Brooks can swing hot and hard, as illustrated by a blistering “Never Dance” and an equally scorching “Sway.” She can also swing brightly, taking “Come Rain or Come Shine” at mid-tempo to ably capture the depth of the Arlen/Mercer gem’s ardor, and holding her torch high on a sweltering “When the Sun Comes Out.”
But Brooks is perhaps best at examining love’s murkier corners. That she was an accomplished actress before she set her focus on singing is evident in her tackling of four of the most challenging numbers in the entire American songbook — “Sophisticated Lady,” “Lush Life,” “One for My Baby” and “The Man That Got Away” (the latter mistakenly credited to Harold Arlen and George Gershwin, when it was Ira Gershwin who crafted the lyric, 16 years after his brother’s demise). They are the Mount Rushmore of 3 a.m. tunes, and many a capable vocalist has failed at scaling even one of them. That Brooks ably captures the near-maddening disillusionment and bourbon-fueled bitterness that pervade all four is testament to her estimable storytelling skills. But significant credit is also due Brooks’ arrangers. Top of the list is Tom Garvin, whose masterful touch adorns seven of the album’s ten tracks. Kudos, too, to saxophonist/flautist Kim Richmond who teamed with Garvin to shape “The Man That Got Away” and single-handedly put the dizzying swirl in “Sway,” and to pianist Jeff Colella, who painted the film noir backdrop for Brooks’ exquisite, indigo-hued “Harlem Nocturne” and placed “One for My Baby” in an unexpectedly dreamy setting that is stunningly effective.
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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.