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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE DECEMBER 4, 1998

MUSIC

Andy Bey is back-but he says that he never left

by Harriet L. Schwartz

Andy Bey is back. At least that is what some jazz observers are saying that Bey, a singer and pianist, has returned from some sort of exile from the jazz scene.

Funny thing is, Bey, who just released Shades of Bey (Evidence) says he never left. In fact, Bey says that his fans have supported his music without interruption, but that the media, record companies, and club owners have been inconsistent.

Though Bey is black, HIV positive, and gay, he believes that his difficulties in the music industry transcend issues of race, health, and sexual orientation.

"I'm a person who does things my way,” Bey said in a recent phone interview. "I don't like being told how to sing or who to put in my band. I don't like the idea of being pushed into a certain kind of mold. That's what club owners and record companies do. They don't give you a chance to grow. They hear one good thing and they stick you in that. I've rebelled against that . . . if they didn't want me, I said 'that's all right,' and I just kept doing what I was doing. Sometimes it was difficult and painful. But it never stopped me from my passion."

Bey has been making music since he first sat down behind a piano at age 3 and began hammering out boogie-woogie tunes for his family. He moved on to more impressive venues and played his first date at Harlem's famed Apollo Theatre at age 12. Soon Bey began reaching larger audiences, appearing on a variety of television shows, often performing with jazz legends like Sarah Vaughan and Dina Washington.

Finally, at age 18, Bey left school and joined with his sisters Geraldine and Salome to form "Andy and the Bey Sisters." The three siblings traveled south and began a

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career of playing Cotton Club-style revues, first in Miami and later in Tampa. They went on to spend two years playing in Europe, and also made three records.

After ten years together, Andy and the Bey Sisters disbanded in 1966. Andy went on to work with Gary Bartz and Horace Silver through the 1970s and 1980s and then did a two-year teaching stint in Graz,

Austria, before returning to the United States to record his first solo album, Ballads, Blues & Bey (1996, Evidence).

While Bey says that coming out, which he did publicly in 1994, has not impacted his career, he says it has afforded him new freedom.

"For me, mainly it's been a liberation," he says. "It's been liberating to come out, not so much to prove anything, to flag wave or be part of a cause. But it's helped me to be able to separate the real from the unreal. The people who didn't want to be bothered with me, they would know right up front, so, I could deal with that. They might say things behind your back but that doesn't matter. At least I'm not trying to hide."

Bey recalls the dualistic life of a jazz art-

ist who was quietly gay, but not yet out of the closet. On one hand, he felt that he didn't fit into a macho jazz scene where male artists often talk about “chasing women.” On the other hand, Bey says many of his contemporaries knew he was gay.

"I knew all the cats on the scene-the guys from the bebop era and the guys from the '50s," he says. "I used to sing with Horace Silver's band, and I sang with Gary Parker's band. And I sang with Max Roach and with Frank Foster. I sang with Howard McGee some of the great musicians of the century. I sang with Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke-recorded with them.

"A lot of them knew where I was coming from, but they always respected me as a musician. They never went beyond that because I never bowed down to anyone. I never asked for anyone's approval and I still don't. You respect yourself and you have

passion about what you are doing. You don't have to have an attitude that they should accept you. If they do, cool, but if they don't it still should be cool."

Bey has less to say about being HIV positive in the jazz community. He says only that his friends ask about his health and express their support.

Like most artists, Bey would rather talk music than anything else. He remains clearly enthused about Shades of Bey, his second solo album. Bey notes that the new album offers more instrumentation than his previous release. In addition, the new disc features Bey playing piano, singing a scat tune, and for the first time on record, singing in Spanish.

"The title is aptly put because it shows different sides of me," he says. “I think it's not pretentious. It was well-planned and well thought out. I'm blessed with an excellent producer. We respond to each other in many ways. He's responsible for a lot of the material that was sent to me--I had never heard of Nick Drake. He sent me ["River Man"] and asked me to trust him and I liked the tune.

"We put our heads together and I would work on the material, add little arrangements, add little ideas-it was a back and forth thing with him sending me tapes of tunes and I'm sending him what I did to the tunes. In the studio, it's very relaxing to work with a producer who interjects and knows what he wants, but at the same time he lets the artist relax and take risks."

Though Bey has yet to settle on an idea for his next project, he says that at some point he plans to record a solo piano album. While his singing has often been at the forefront of his performances, both live and recorded, Bey has equal connection to singing and playing piano and in fact the two combine for a place he thinks of as home.

"[Music] is my world," he says. "It's my passion. It gives me a feeling of creating something, of being in touch with who I am and of showing where I come from. When I make these transitions from year to year, decade to decade, and still stay involved and try to be fresh with the music, it gives me a lot of pleasure to know that I am still able to do it under the circumstances."

Harriet L. Schwartz is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

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