Personnel: Andy Bey (vocals, piano); Gary Bartz (alto saxophone); Andy Stein (violin, viola); Annabelle Hoffman (cello); Geri Allen (piano); Paul Meyers (guitar); Dennis James, Peter Washington (bass); Victor Lewis (drums).

Recorded at Hillside Studios, Englewood, New Jersey on December 16 & 17, 1997

and February 20 & 21, 1998.

Personnel: Andy Bey (vocals, piano); Paul Meyers (guitar); Andy Stein (violin, viola); Annabelle Hoffman (cello); Gary Bartz (alto saxophone); Geri Allen (piano); Victor Lewis (drums).

Recording information: Hillside Studios, Englewood, N.J (12/16/1997-02/21/1998).

Photographer: Stephanie Badini.

Andy Bey's bass-baritone voice has aged over the last thirty-odd years, but it's aged well; he now sings in a husky drawl that sounds all the more warm and intimate for being a bit ragged around the edges. When he goes into falsetto, as on "Midnight Blue," athe sound is so dark that you don't recognize it as falsetto at first. This album peaks early on with "Like a Lover," a wistful love song with only the gentlest, sparest guitar accompaniment. But there are many other beautiful moments, the best of which always come on the slow numbers: the Billy Strayhorn classic "Pretty Girl," on which Bey sounds like Billy Eckstine with a weathered patina to his voice, and the surprising Nick Drake cover, the moody and intense "River Man." His vocal version of Thelonious Monk's "Straight, No Chaser" is fun, but it tends to expose the limitations of his range; however, he makes the uptempo "Believin' It" work beautifully -- Geri Allen's edgy, modernist piano contrasts nicely with Bey's effusive, bop-inflected delivery. ~ Rick Anderson

One hopes this gorgeous album will at last spread the news about the superb jazz vocalist/pianist Andy Bey, a well-kept secret for most of his long career. Like his contemporaries Shirley Horn and Jimmy Scott, both of whom also emerged from undeserved obscurity only in the '90s, Bey prefers to work with glacially slow tempos. But while Horn still favors dry phrasing born of years in the cabarets and Scott ever perfects his signature art of the wail, Bey's burnished, sensual baritone luxuriates in a warm bath of sound and melody, prolonged as long as decency permits.

The selections on SHADES --Sergio Mendes' "Like A Lover," the late art-rocker Nick Drake's "River Man," "Drume Negrita," an Afro-Cuban lullaby--set the mood even more effectively than the more standard jazz fare offered on the previous BALLADS, BLUES & BEY. Bey hasn't neglected his roots however, what with a spirited rendition of Monk's "Straight No Chaser" as well as two compositions by Billy Strayhorn--the little known and lovely "Pretty Girl (The Starcrossed Lovers)" and a definitive version of the astonishingly beautiful "Blood Count."