During her visit to New York City for the 2023 Jazz Congress, Sylvia Brooks felt compelled to visit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. While there, she was struck by a musical inspiration as she heard “Amazing Grace” at the hallowed ground where nearly 3,000 people lost their lives.
The inimitable vocalist Sylvia Brooks returns with a 5th album, where live selections from the American Songbook were fleshed out at Herb Albert’s Vibrato, and with an all star cast on hand.
O’s Notes: Sylvia Brooks Live is a warm set of ballads backed by musical director, pianist Christian Jacob and his band. The place is Herb Albert’s Vibrato Jazz Grill in Los Angeles. Sylvia’s soft vocals and rich tones are perfect for these blues-based ballads with very intriguing stories. Among the best are “Blues In the Night” – an instrumental, “The Red Pig Flew Up the Hill” with sweet horn harmonies, and “Tender Trap” with Jacobs dazzling solo. This is a fine showcase of the headliner’s songwriting and musical talents.
If the American Songbook feels like a repository of timeless wisdom it’s because jazz vocalists breathe new life into familiar tales, interpreting the music with visceral emotional immediacy. In the case of chanteuse Sylvia Brooks, the songs serve as a barometer, marking the increasing depth she plumbs.
Her evolution is evident throughout her fifth album, which was recorded at Herb Albert’s Vibrato Jazz Grill. Revisiting material from earlier releases, Sylvia Brooks Live [with Christian Jacob] provides both a snapshot of an artist in full command and a revelatory index of the distance she’s traveled since her impressive 2009 debut Dangerous Liaisons.
This new album from vocalist Sylvia Brooks was recorded live at Herb Albert’s Vibrato Jazz Grill, and finds her revisiting some material she released on her studio albums. Joining her on this release are Christian Jacob on piano, David Hughes on bass, Kevin Kanner on drums, David Witham on keyboards and accordion, Jeff Bunnell on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Brian Scanlon on tenor saxophone and flute. She opens the album with a delicious rendition of “When The Sun Comes Out,” written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. It’s a song she recorded for her debut album, 2009’s Dangerous Liaisons. There is something sexy about this rendition, in the horns and in her vocal approach, particularly the power behind it. And of course it features some really nice work on piano.
Whoever said that Los Angeles, California is not a hot bed for Jazz, and that the American west coast was the last place to host true-to-genre Jazz performers? While the idea of the American Jazz mecca seems to always default to New York City, we have to remember that so many other U.S. geographic regions produced and purported birthing—or at least being home to—some of the best jazz players in the history of the genre, and all of it’s bona fide sub-genres and styles.