*** Andy Bey

SHADES OF BEY

(Evidence)

Jazz singer Andy Bey's voice is smooth, deep, and romantic. His 40-year career on the fringes of the commercially marginal world of jazz vocalists has passed without much notice, but that situation may now be changing. His ear-opening, near-perfect 1996 set Ballads, Blues & Bey presented the singer alone with his piano, performing gorgeous, crystalline ballads and mid-tempo numbers.

Shades of Bey is a more varied release with less consistent results. Bey fronts a furious bebop trio for "Get It Straight," which is Thelonious Monk's now standard "Straight No Chaser" outfitted with Bey's own Monk-centric lyrics scatted and spat. Elsewhere Bey moves from post-bop to Brazilian-tinged jazz with help from such talents as pianist Geri Allen, saxophonist Gary Bartz, drummer Victor Lewis, and bassist Peter Washington. But it's on the ballads, where his yearning tenor simply bursts forth and he drapes his lush falsetto over a drawn-out phrases, that Bey proves himself to be a living master of the lost art of jazz singing.

-- Bill Kisliuk