Following up on her highly-acclaimed trilogy Black, Blue and Red, Beata Pater has taken a delightful turn into another sublime direction with Golden Lady. Abandoning the larger ensembles, vocalese excursions and fiery adventurousness of those albums, Beata has turned to a pair of longtime collaborators – pianist Hiromu Aoki and bassist Buca Necak – to create an enthralling gem of an album, filled with emotional intensity and rich lyricism.
With brilliant interplay and powerful empathy that makes the trio sound like a unified, multi-faceted instrument, Beata offers her singular interpretations of eleven outstanding songs culled from some of America and Brazil’s finest composers. From sumptuous ballads to buoyant swing, the album is highly accessible and radio-friendly, yet still bears the innovative freshness and unpredictable inventiveness that are hallmarks of her remarkable musical vision.
With each piece lovingly crafted with the consummate artistry of a master jeweler, honed by superb musicianship and stunning creativity, Golden Lady displays the perfect setting for Beata’s beautiful and sensual voice. Interpreting lyrics in the manner of the immortal jazz horn players, Beata sculpts every nuance of the words’ meaning and impact within a vivid context of storytelling at its most profound. Golden Lady is another triumph for a truly special artist.
Reviews
AllAboutJazz.com - C. Michael Bailey
Beata Pater's vocal expertise is about shape, texture and the nuance informing both. Pater's B&B Records color-inspired trilogy, Black (2006), Blue (2011) and Red (2013) was a critically well-received series that demonstrated the singers mastery of wordless singing in a large band format, pushing the creative envelope to the edge of its capacity. Pater's self-claimed influences include Ella Fitzgerald,Sarah Vaughan and Shirley Horn. But the spirit of Betty Carter permeates this disc in the durable elasticity that supports Pater's adventurous voice.How Pater sings is a high-wire method. She constantly takes artistic chances with her phrasing, always meeting triumph and thus evolutionary progress. Pater's subjects are well off the beaten path, providing perfect vehicles for her carefully wrought creative journeys. Poet Maya Angelou's moody "Turned to Blue" displays Pater's arsenal of slurs, sways and glissandos all existing in harmony with the exceptional pianism of Hiromu Aoki, whose understated approach rests on the same rarefied plane as that of Pater. Pater's vocals are delicate and cinematic on Oscar Castro-Neves' "I Live to Love You" and creamy roux-rich on Gordon Jenkins' "This is All I Ask."
Aoki's informed piano bears discussion in his facility to use very simple rhythmic constructs to direct a song's dramatic content. On the disc opener, "Wild is the Wind," fashions his support around two sudden chord voicings forming a mantra giving Pater an entire sonic neighborhood to walk around in. On the closing "A Little Tear," Aoki and bassist Buca Necak establish a more complex repeating figure that propels Pater's most forthright singing, lyrically and non- lyrically. Pater's instrumental support is perfection. This is a fine vocal disc indeed, much in the same pioneering mode as Lisa Sokolov's fine Presence (Self Produced, 1004) and stands as its natural evolution.
by C. MICHAEL BAILEY, AllAboutJazz.com
JazzWeekly.com - George W. Harris
If you’re wanting something less like Diana Krall, and more like Betty Carter, look no further than Beata Pater. This latest release has her with the Spartan accompaniment of Hiromu Aoli/p and Buca Necak/b, and they both do a yeoman’s job of creating either incessant rhythms or impressionistic backdrops. Penetrating chords create a foundation for Pater’s cabaret style on “Wild is the Wind” while “The Day It Rained” is a lonely balled with sparse and vulnerable drapery. She takes lyrics and stretches them like an elastic band, toying with them on “Turned to Blue” or “If You Went Away.” With dripping bass and drums she goes in and out of time on the dripping title tune, and aches on “This Is All I Ask.” Highly emotional without histrionics-a rare breed these days.George W. Harris, JazzWeekly.com
O's Jazz Magazine Review - Golden Lady gets 4/4 and Beata a featured artist
If you were to listen to this CD without knowing the owner of the soulful vocal tones, you'd never guess this to be Polish-born Beata Pater. But those who know her work would sit down, smile and enjoy the performance. Pater has sung Brazilian bossa nova, vocalese and traditional jazz and in each case done it with splendor. She has lived in Japan for a decade and recently formed a trio with pianist Aoki Hiromu and bassist Buca Necak. Their sound is soft and inviting over eleven pop tunes highlighted by "A Little Tear". Beata does remarkable things with her voice making the recording dynamic and inviting.>
O's Jazz Magazine issue 20/2 - author D. Oscar Groomes
JazzMostly.com - 5 Star review
Unlike her three most recent albums, Black, Blue and Red, here Beata Pater sings with minimal accompaniment, just piano and bass, and the result is a delicately imaginative reworking of a nicely varied selection of songs. On those previous albums, as well as others that have been appearing since the early 1990s, Beata demonstrated her comprehensive musical skills. Trained as a violinist at Warsaw’s Music Academy, she came to the USA from Poland with an established following, not only in her native Poland but also in Japan, where she spent a valuable decade as a session singer, club performer and also fronted her own groups.Among the well-known but by no means overdone songs reinvented here are Wild Is The Wind, Save Your Love For Me, Golden Lady, This Is All I Ask and Someone To Light Up My Life. There are also several less well-known songs that are especially suited to the singer’s thoughtful understanding, including Maya Angelou’s Turned To Blue and Oscar Castro-Neves’s I Live To Love You. Beata sings all of these songs, familiar and neglected, in her soft, gentle and persuasive voice, a vocal sound that is flexible and constantly finds the subtleties of the lyricists’ intentions and the composers’ melodic charms. Beata’s accompanists here are pianist Hiromu Aoki and her longtime musical associate, bassist Buca Necak, both of whom add immeasurably to the many delights of this set.
Bruce Crowther, JazzMostly.com
"Pater approaches from the Mel Torme side of the house, West Coast Cooling down with a generous sidecar of Nina Simone" AccousticMusic.com
I needed nothing more than to spot Wild is the Wind as the lead track to immediately interest me in Beata Pater's latest, Golden Lady. When Bowie covered the mournful song, I about lost my cool, such a righteous version! (but then ALL of Station to Station was killer). But where the Thin White Duke took it over the top, Pater approaches from the Mel Torme side of the house, West Coast Cooling down with a generous sidecar of Nina Simone, who also cut a great version in '64. And as opposed to the Red disc (here), Lady takes things to the trio level—just voice, piano, and bass, often enough just piano and voice.Where Red was, as I opined, a colorful cocktail album, Lady is the gin 'n tonic side of the singer, a window on a pier-side dive at midnight, neon lights flashing discreetly outside, a balmy wind breezing past the doorway, and a roomful of clinking glasses and murmured conversations sounding as the audience drinks in the ambiance. I Don't Remember Growing Up departs from that for a moment, a Sting-ish reading of Artie Butler's old tune. The title cut, of course, is Stevie Wonder's great opus, one of many the cat wrote, here taken down to a fundament even Stevie never exposed, a wistful reading transitioning from dance floor escapade to romantic ballad.
Jobim's Someone to Light Up my Life swims across the Gulf to rest on hip Texo-Floridian shores, lolling in the fading sun. Throughout the disc, Hiromi Aoki's keys are mellifluous and beautiful, slightly complementing and then subtly offshading Pater's readings in excellent copacetic contrast, and take that Jobim cut as a prime example, my fave cut by the way. Beata pulls all kinds of sonic garrulities and taffy-soft elasticities without ever becoming demonstrative in the least, an evocation Chet Baker woulda swooned for. You can almost hear her wink and smile. And if you picked up Red, be prepared for a very pleasant surprise from the other side of town.
MARK TUCKER, AccousticMusic.com
"Totally Hot" MidwestRecord.com
In which we find Pater trying a new brand of special sauce, totally changing her vibe and sound, and if nothing else, she shows how less is more. Dumping the big band for a piano and bass, Pater has found that spot where Chaka Khan meets eastern Europe for a wildly sexy spin. Deftly mixing cabaret, performance art vibes and 50s black, chick singer moves, this set handily turns everything topsy turvy giving your expectations a real kick in the pants. If you’re not impressed with the bitching today’s 17 to 23 year olds pass off as singing the blues about life these days, this world wise set is going to put you in a head lock and not let go. This is a real treat for mature tastes that still like to buy albums but just can’t find what they want at Target and don’t have the time to invest in investigating Amazon. Totally hot.
"Different shades, different hues - Extending the Possibilities of the Human Voice"
Having joined the throngs of fans of Beata Pater and reviewing her previous album BLUE and RED you'd think the wonders of this artist's voice and talent would not surprise. But that is simply not the case. Beata Pater has taken a delightful turn into another sublime direction with Golden Lady. No longer feeling the need for the big sound Beata has turned to a pair of longtime collaborators - pianist Hiromu Aoki and bassist Buca Necak - to create an enthralling gem of an album, filled with emotional intensity and rich lyricism.
Beata Pater is a Polish born international jazz star, but a star with her own language of music. Classically trained as a violinist in the Music Academy of Warsaw, Pater understands rhythm, pitch, the vocalise, and the juxtaposition of musical lines better than many of our finest classical musicians, and yet she employs all of these traits to her unique gifts as a jazz singer. Rather than concentrating on lyrics Pater instead puts her abilities to the test of communicating a song's meaning through simply using her rather incredible instrument of a voice to produce musical lines instrumentally. She is one unique artist. She has the most creative expanse of musical sounds she can create simply with using her voice to stretch where others dare not go. The result is an aural experience like no other. The voice here becomes the lead instrument challenging her fellow musicians to ride as high as she dares to go.
Gold, golden, illuminating, intimate. Just sit back and be seduced by this extraordinary lady.
Grady Harp - Amazon Jazz Review
Musicians
Beata Pater - vocal
Aoki Hiromu - piano
Buca Necak - contrabass
Tracks
1 Wild Is the Wind
Dimitri Tiomkin & Ned Washington
2 The Day It Rained
Durval Ferreira and Pedro Comargo
3 Turned to Blue
J. Ashby & M. Angelou
4 Save Your Love For Me
Buddy Johnson
5 I Don't Remember Ever Growing Up
Artie Butler
6 I Live to Love You
Oscar Castro-Neves
7 This Is All I Ask
Gordon Jenkins
8 Golden Lady
Stevie Wonder
9 If You Went Away
Marcos Valle
10 Someone to Light Up My Life
Antonio Carlos Jobim
11 A Little Tear
Eumir Deodato
Recording info
Recorded at B&B RecordsRecorded in Palm Desert, California
Recording engineer - Mike Gibson
Mix engineer -Mike Gibson/Bond Bergland
Mastering - Dale "D-Wiz" Everingham
Photography - Marek Balata
Media info
Artist: Beata PaterTitle: Golden Lady
Label: B&B Records
Catalog Number: BB0419
UPC Code: 826049000074
Radio Street Date: October 2, 2013
Media Release Date: March 4, 2014
Art Assets




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Golden Lady on the Radio
KZSU* | Stanford | CA |
KZSC* | Santa Cruz | CA |
KVCU* | Boulder | CO |
Radio CUH* | Honolulu | HI |
KRFP* | Moscow | ID |
WERU* | East Orland | ME |
KFAI* | Minneapolis | MN |
WBGU* | Bowling Green | OH |
WRUW* | Cleveland | OH |
WDPS* | Dayton | OH |
TCC "The Grid"* | Tulsa | OK |
WZBT* | Gettysburg | PA |
KASU | Ark. St. University | AR |
Radio Adelaide | Adelaide | Australia |
KHSU | Arcata | CA |
KSJS | San Jose | CA |
KSVY | Sonoma | CA |
KVMR | Nevada City | CA |
KVPR | Fresno | CA |
KALX | Berkeley | CA |
KPFA | Berkeley | CA |
KCSB | Santa Barbara | CA |
KAFM | Grand Junction | CO |
KDNK | Carbondale | CO |
KVNF | Paonia | CO |
WRTC | Hartford | CT |
WWUH | Hartford | CT |
WDNA | Miami | FL |
WCLK | Atlanta | GA |
WHCJ | Savannah | GA |
WABR | Tifton | GA |
WACG | Augusta | GA |
WASU | Albany | GA |
WATY | Folkston | GA |
WDCO | Macon | GA |
WGPB | Rome | GA |
WJSP | Columbus | GA |
WJWV | Fort Gaines | GA |
WMUM | Atlanta | GA |
WNGH | Dalton | GA |
WNGU | Dahlonega | GA |
WPPR | Demorest | GA |
WSVH | Savannah | GA |
WUGA | Athens | GA |
WUNV | Albany | GA |
WUWG | Carrollton | GA |
WWET | Valdosta | GA |
WWIO | Brunswick | GA |
WXVS | Waycross | GA |
KTUH | Honolulu | HI |
KIPO | Honolulu | HI |
WCUW | Worcester | MA |
WICN | Worcester | MA |
WMUA | Amherst | MA |
WESM | Princess Anne | MD |
WGVU | Grand Rapids | MI |
KBEM | Minneapolis | MN |
KJLU | Jefferson City | MO |
KOPN | Columbia | MO |
WJSU | Jackson | MS |
WSHA | Raleigh | NC |
WKNS | Greenville | NC |
WTEB | Greenville | NC |
WZMB | Greenville | NC |
WUNH | Durham | NH |
90.3 The Core | Piscataway | NJ |
WPRB | Princeton | NJ |
KUNV | Las Vegas | NV |
WAER | Syracuse | NY |
WXTS | Toledo | OH |
Radioio | Online | Online |
taintradio.org | Online | Online |
MOJA Radio | Online | Online |
KPSU | Portland | OR |
KEOL | La Grande | OR |
WDIY | Bethlehem | PA |
WQLN | Erie | PA |
SD Public Broadcasting | Vermillion | SD |
Georgia Public Radio | Syndicated | Syndicated |
Jazz & Blues Tour Radio | The Netherlands | |
WUMR | Memphis | TN |
KTEP | El Paso | TX |
KZMU | Moab | UT |
KSER | Everett | WA |
KSVR | Mt. Vernon | WA |
WWSP | Stevens Pt. | WI |
WRST | Oshkosh | WI |
WLSU | La Crosse | WI |
WORT | Madison | WI |
WWVU | Morgantown | WV |
KRFP* | Moscow | ID |
WERU* | East Orland | ME |
KFAI* | Minneapolis | MN |
WBGU* | Bowling Green | OH |