A great voice is reborn
Carlos Torres Moura | Brazil | 03/23/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Hadda Brooks is phenomenal. She was eighty in 1996, when this CD was produced. When almost all artists are retired, she went back (her first records were made in the forties) to a studio to play and sing with a teenager's strength and disposition, giving us amazing performances. Her voice remembers Alberta Hunter's last recordings but Hadda's has a personal style besides playing the piano herself (and what a piano! ). The CD is a flawless collection of standards with some themes from Billie Holiday's universe ("I'm a fool to want you", "Miss Brown to you" ) and a superb and dramatic version of "Close your eyes", a Carter&Desmond's masterpiece from the thirties. With her powerful strikes on the piano, some tracks have brilliant contribuitions of Richard Dodd on the cello. There's no drums, no strings orchestra, no excess. Only "Senator" Eugene Wright on bass, Al Viola on guitar and Dodd. And, of course, the incomparable Hadda's swing and emotion. Buy it fast!"