Concert Previews

Despite being a child prodigy who played the Apollo Theater in New York before age 8, and who formed an eerily harmonic trio with his sisters at 17 and worked with bop giants Hank Mobley, Horace Silver and Max Roach, Andy Bey nearly got stuck in the shadows. That is until the Newark native, who has one of jazz's richest vocal ranges and twilight vibrato (to say nothing of his plaintive piano style), recorded a powerful series of haunting albums. Ranging from the 1990s onward, they included

Ballads, Blues & Bey

;

Shades of Bey

;

Tuesdays in Chinatown

and culminated with the prickly emotive highs and low-lows of 2004's

American Song

. Settling into a classic catalog of song with a lonely élan, religious reverie and an overall sense of solitude, his recently released live album,

Ain't Necessarily So

, finds Bey in a carefully tonic tone with a few repetitive modal bumps along the way. Mostly it's an oozing slow noir affair with songs like "Someone to Watch Over Me" offering tender soul and patience in ways never imagined.

- A.D. Amorosi

Away from recording for a full six years - a near lifetime in the world of pop music - Suzanne Vega returned this summer with

Beauty & Crime

, her most ambitious and accessible album in years. Using her hometown of New York City as the backdrop for this series of melodic story-songs, Vega's taut, evocative lyrics touch on everything from Edith Wharton to 9/11. And the "folk-waif" stylings of earlier efforts have morphed into something more interesting and intense, while keeping Vega's crisp acoustic guitar playing front and center. From the jazzy "Pornographer's Dream," to the unobtrusive electronics that wind through "Angel's Doorway," these songs, both keenly personal and coolly observational, offer more with each listen. Onstage, backed by a four-member band, the engaging Vega will focus on tracks from the new record, but old gems like "Luka" and "Tom's Diner" will get a reworking as well.

- Nicole Pensiero

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound - OK, her music is not gospel, but Grace Potter can be transporting in her own way. She's only in her mid-20s, but the singer, songwriter and keyboardist from Vermont sounds as if she came out of another era - think the early '70s, when she wouldn't have sounded out of place alongside the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Tracy Nelson and Rod Stewart. She's a rocker who can belt with bluesy power or convey tender intimacy, while the Nocturnals provide a warmly organic backdrop with echoes of R & B, soul and country. The major-label debut,

This Is Somewhere,

adds some polish, but also tightens and focuses the thrilling dynamics that have been at the heart of the Nocturnals' sound.

- Nick Cristiano

It's not every day you get to see a slide-trumpet player, but that's the specialty of Steven Bernstein, who brings his snazzy, jazzy quartet, Sex Mob, to town Tuesday. Bernstein was a member of John Lurie's Lounge Lizards, and, like them, Sex Mob blends a sense of humor with an avant-garde improvisational adventurousness, most recently on Sexotica, an affectionately irreverent tribute to Martin Denny, composer of '60s kitschy bachelor-pad exotica. Sex Mob's exuberant jazz should be fun to see and hear at the usually rocking and rolling Johnny Brenda's, on a bill sponsored by the Ars Nova Workshop that includes the percussion duo of Billy Martin (of Medeski, Martin and Wood) and Calvin Weston (another ex-Lounge Lizard), and the Andrew D'Angelo Trio, featuring local bassist Evan Lipson.

- Steve Klinge