Beata Pater

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.

CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher www.midewestrecord.com