3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great voice is reborn, March 23, 2001
This review is from: Time Was When (Audio CD)
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!
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Hadda Brooks - Time Was When, August 25, 2011
This review is from: Time Was When (Audio CD)
The recording is excellent. Unfortunately this was done in 1996 when Hadda Brooks was 70+ years old. She must have been something when she was younger (see Humphrey Bogart 1950 movie where she sang) but this CD is an old tired woman singing 1950's blues. Good historically but not very entertaining.
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