Shades Of Bey

By BRUCE HANDY

This vocalist had the misfortune to come of age in the early '60s, just when male jazz singers were going out of style. Unrecorded for 22 years, Bey, now 58, issued a comeback CD, Ballads, Blues and Bey, in 1996. On this follow-up, he makes dramatic use of his four-octave range against spare but inventive arrangements of tunes from the further reaches of the great American songbook. On ballads, Bey's voice can have a humanizing tightness, a vulnerability that draws a listener in. But when the tempo quickens he can really belt it out: the New York Times aptly dubbed him a "hard-bop foghorn."

--By Bruce Handy