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.
Why Social Media is Helping Gen Z Rediscover Jazz
Jazz is over a century old, yet it feels astonishingly at home in one of the fastest moving cultural spaces today: social media. Swipe through TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts, and before long you are liable to run into a pianist improvising over the top of...
