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.

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."