Andy Bey - Rare live performance August 7, 2009

A FESTIVAL of FESTIVALS
Gnu Vox Festival Special Event
ANDY BEY
August 7, 9pm & 10:30pm

“Soon as I finished my gig I’d run over to hear them. Andy never got the recognition he deserved . . . jazz originals . . . brilliant and precious.”
– Aretha Franklin

“Bey's silky bass-baritone voice has become one of the finest instruments in jazz”
– New York Times

Hosted by Dave Devoe, Cornelia Street Café’s Gnu Vox Festival presents highly acclaimed jazz vocalist Andy Bey in a rare, public performance August 7, 9pm & 10:30pm. Tickets will be $15. There is no advance purchase.

This event is part of Cornelia Street Café’s A Festival of Festivals, an unpredictable, expansive, exciting series of mini festivals in August. For a full schedule of all the festivals please visit www.corneliastreetcafe.com.

About Andy Bey

Andy Bey is one of the great unsung heroes of jazz singing. He is a commanding interpreter of lyrics with a wide vocal range and a big, rich full voice. A singer since age 8, Bey recorded his first solo album at age 13 and was a regular fixture at the Apollo Theater.

In 1956, he and his sisters Salome and Geraldine formed Andy and the Bey Sisters. By the late Fifties, the vocal trio's high-energy mix of jazz, pop, and gospel had created a sensation overseas. In England, where they made their recording debut, the London Daily Herald called them "the world's most exciting vocal group." In Paris, they recorded with a band that included Kenny Clarke and Kenny Dorham and were captured in a nightclub performance that would turn up years later in Let's Get Lost, filmmaker Bruce Weber's Academy Award–nominated documentary about Chet Baker.

Back in the States, Newport Jazz Festival producer George Wein signed them to a management contract, which led to the 1961 RCA Victor album Andy and the Bey Sisters, produced in Nashville by Chet Atkins. The trio cut two further albums—1964's Now! Hear! and the following year's 'Round Midnight, both on Prestige—before disbanding in 1966.

For the two decades thereafter, Bey recorded and performed with such notables as McCoy Tyner, Lonnie Liston Smith, Thad Jones / Mel Lewis, Eddie Harris and others.

After a twenty two year absence from recording Andy Bey returned with four albums that have become a permanent part of the musical landscape. The 2005 Grammy Nominated American Song is a delicious celebration of one of America’s great gifts to the music world: The American Songbook. On his latest release Ain’t Necessarily So Bey brings the energy of live performance to compositions by the gods of American Songwriting.

Insiders have always known about Andy Bey. Given his limited output of studio recordings, live performances were the source of Bey’s reputation as singer. Like the playground legend who never made it to the NBA, Andy Bey was almost consigned to the fading murmurs of those who caught him in Paris in ‘59, or Birdland in the mid ‘60s.

But the vivid performances haven’t dimmed. Like so many before him, British vocalist Jamie Cullum described what it’s like to fall under Bey’s spell: “Andy Bey was at Ronnie Scott’s and I saw him six nights in a row. I got into a huge amount of debt going to see Andy Bey. What I love about him is that he creates an atmosphere. As soon as he opens his mouth, you’re transported to another place.”

About Gnu Vox

Gnu Vox, inaugurated in 2005 at the Cornelia Street Café and hosted by Dave Devoe, presents the highest caliber of vocal talent with the philosophy that gifted singers are as skilled as their instrumentalist counterparts in acting as bandleaders, improvisers, composers, and arrangers. This unique series exhibits highly acclaimed established artists such as Sheila Jordan, Mark Murphy, and Jay Clayton, as well as emerging talent Julie Hardy, Jo Lawry, and Sara Serpa. The weekly series has ranged from traditional jazz, avant garde, bluegrass, folk, latin and soul to the unclassifiable with performances by Theo Bleckmann, Dominique Eade, Peter Eldridge, Gretchen Parlato and Diane Birch.

About the Café

As the economy continues to squeeze the life out of the arts, the Cornelia Street Café remains a vital source of creative energy, positive idealism and a presenter/producer of engaged performance. Informed by its extensive and remarkable history the café remains a pioneer of the arts community. We hope you will come and enjoy the Cornelia Street Café as it continues to champion the wider arts community through its eclectic summer programming.

Hailed by Mayoral proclamation as “A culinary as well as a cultural landmark” the Cornelia Street café has been presenting an enormous variety of performance for over 30 years, launching, establishing or reviving the careers of artists such as Suzanne Vega, Eve Ensler, Bill McHenry, John McNeill, Theo Bleckman, Tony Malaby, Jeremy Steig, Suheir Hammad, Hyung Ki Joo, and dozens of others. The café has given voice to neglected major international playwrights such as Liliane Atlan, Peter Barnes and Gunter Grass and has featured appearances by writers as diverse as Senator Eugene McCarthy, attorney William Kunstler, and Monty Python’s Terry Jones.

The café has a longstanding and rich spoken work series featuring Greek-American, Italian-American, Russian-American poetry and boasts a fascinating Science series, curated by Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann, which has hosted the likes of neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks and Benoit Mandelbrot, the inventor of fractal geometry. Music is represented by a highly acclaimed Songwriters series, a jazz vocal series, a blues series, several avant-garde composers’ series and an internationally renowned jazz series.

Official Website: http://www.corneliasrteetcafe.com