Sylvia Brooks

Sylvia Brooks (born May 18 in Miami Beach, Florida) is an American jazz musician and recording artist. Her debut album, Dangerous Liaisons, features songs from the Great American Songbook and Jazz Standards Songbook, and was in rotation on over 500 radio stations throughout the United States and Canada.

Born into a musical family, her father, Don Ippolito, was a jazz pianist and arranger, who wrote for the big bands in the United States Army during World War II, and has played with such luminaries as Buddy Rich, Ira Sullivan and Peggy Lee. Her mother, Johanna Dordick, was an opera singer, who founded the Los Angeles Opera Theatre in Los Angeles, and under her artistic direction, produced six seasons of opera. A classically trained actress, Sylvia Brooks studied at The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, under the direction of Bill Ball and Allen Flecher. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

She has collaborated with Thomas Garvin, Kim Bullard, Kim Richmond, Jeff Colella, Rich Eames, Chris Colangelo, Kendall Kay, Jamie Havorka, Alex Budman and Brian Kilgore. She played Dorothy Brock in 42nd Street at the Theatre Under The Stars in Houston, Texas, and the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Washington and has acted on television in Designing Women, Dallas, Mama & Son, Baywatch, and Beverly Hills 90210, and was featured on the Guns and Roses video Patience.

Her second album, Restless, released in May 2012, is a collaboration with Kim Richmond, and Rich Eames, exploring the darker side of jazz she calls Jazz Noir. Restless has been named on numerous Top Ten Lists on WUHN, CHMR, CKXU, WWSU, WUMF, WMXM, KEUL, WONV, WERU, and was featured on Gone Fishin, in Kobe, Japan, as well as KPOO in San Francisco, the first black owned station on the West Coast.