Beloved singer and Newark native Andrew W. “Andy” Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with his four-octave, vocal virtuosity, which encompassed his bellowing baritone and high flying falsetto, died on Saturday, April 26, at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, NJ, surrounded by loving family and friends. He was 85 years old.
Bey's death was announced by his nephew, actor/singer Darius de Haas.
Bey’s long artistic life ranged from his years as a child prodigy, singing in the family group, Andy and the Bey Sisters – Salome Bey and Geraldine Bey de Haas – his impressive sideman work with many jazz stars including Gary Bartz, Horace Silver, Stanley Clarke and Max Roach, as well as his own albums as a leader, including his 1974 Indian-influenced debut, Experience and Judgement, his 1996 album Ballads, Blues & Bey, which drew critical acclaim as Bey’s breakout recording and established him as major jazz vocalist after years of obscurity.
His album American Song garnered him a 2005 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album. His final two projects released in 2013 and 2014, Grammy-nominated The World According to Andy Bey and Pages from an Imaginary Life, represented the zenith of his musical style, which usually featured Bey accompanying himself at the piano, interpreting American standard repertoire and pop artists like Nick Drake. Writing in Jazzwise magazine, Kevin Le Gendre opined, “that baritone, paradoxically full and light, with its floating quality, has acquired more finesse over time, and on slow tempos it is exquisite, primarily because the control that Bey exerts over every single sustain or sotto phrase is faultless.”
Born in Newark, NJ, on October 28, 1939, Bey started playing piano at three. He attended Newark Arts High School, performed at the Apollo Theater and in the mid-fifties, he worked on the television show Startime Kids, which also featured Connie Francis and Joe Pesci. Bey recorded three LP’s with his siblings from 1961 to 1965 for the RCA Victor and Prestige labels: Andy and the Bey Sisters, Now! Hear! and ‘Round Midnight. Bey and his sisters embarked on a 16-month tour of Europe before disbanding in 1967. Influenced by Billie Holiday, Billy Eckstine, and Sarah Vaughan, Bey’s vocal talents were heard on Horace Silvers’ hard bop oriented LPs that included That Healin’ Feelin’: The United States of Mind/Phase 1 and Music to Ease Your Disease, Gary Bartz’s Afro-themed Harlem Bush Music recordings, Stanley Clarke’s fusion-formed Children of Forever, Max Roach’s martial classic, Members Don't Get Weary in the 60’s and 70’s and Bey’s own seminal recording from 1974, Experience and Judgment featuring his composition “Celestial Blues.”
As Ballads, Blues and Bey established Bey as a vocal force to be reckoned with, his quiet, yet dignified battle as an HIV-positive openly Gay man in the 90’s and beyond drew legions of admirers in and beyond the world of jazz. His awards and accolades include winning the 2003 Jazz Vocalist of the Year Award from the Jazz Journalists Association and NPR’s 2014 Jazz Critics Poll award for Best Vocal Album for Pages from an Imaginary Life.
When most musicians in their years as an octogenarian show signs of slowing down, Andy Bey represented the opposite of that notion until his last years. “It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Bey said on an NPR Jazz Night in America in 2019 when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.” Andy Bey is survived by his sister Geraldine (Bey) de Haas and many nieces and nephews. A memorial celebration of Mr. Bey’s life and musical legacy is being planned.
NOTE: Jazz Night in America will air a special Andy Bey Remembrance episode on May 1, 2025. Originally produced for his 80th birthday, this special episode, hosted by Christian McBride, revisits a conversation between Andy and producer Herb Jordan, along with powerful performances from a 2002 concert in New York City. We celebrate the life, music, and enduring spirit of a singular jazz voice.
