This sultry songstress has got her groove back.
Jazz singer Hilary Kole, 37, dabbed tears of joy from her cheeks yesterday and said she was “exhilarated” moments after a judge freed her from the contract that bound her to a former manager/boyfriend turned nemesis.
“I feel a great sense of joy and relief,” Kole gushed outside a Manhattan court today. “I can now go back to doing what I do best which is singing and not standing in the courtroom.”
Kole, a globe-trotting vocalist who’s graced the stages of Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, has been battling ex-fiancé and Birdland owner John Valenti, 64, since he allegedly threatened to kill her last May.
She claims he tried to destroy her career and stole their shared brokerage accounts.
The decision frees her to start recording and touring again.
Andrea Bierstein, attorney for jazz club owner Valenti, argued, “There is not get out of jail free card to get out of this contract.”
But Justice Ellen Coin countered that since Valenti had agreed to a family court order that barred any kind of contact with Kole, the contract was impossible to enforce.
“You can’t serve as a manager for someone you can’t speak to,” quipped the singer’s attorney, Lawrence Garbuz.
Bierstein said she would likely appeal Coin’s decision.
The curvaceous vocalist is still in legal hot water in an unrelated case.
She was hit was a $1 million federal lawsuit by late jazz pianist Oscar Peterson’s widow in February for copyright infringement.
jmarsh@nypost.com