May 4, 2002, NYTIMES By Paul Griffiths

The baritone Stephen Salters, who gave his Naumburg recital on Monday night at Alice Tully Hall, is a man of thorough confidence, huge charm and a vocal allure that comes brimming off the stage. He started his program with an unaccompanied traditional song, repeating over and over again the same words: "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine." And that was what he did for the next two hours, except that his light was not so little and was joined by the light (also not so little) of David Zobel at the piano.

Qualities Mr. Salters had shown in that prologue - an ability to communicate gentleness and power with the same immediacy, a sense for the whole line of a song, a strong hold on rhythm, an unshakable conviction that L is one of the vowels and, therefore, can indeed shine - were extended and developed in almost everything he did afterward. And Mr. Zobel added his own strength in delicacy, purity of sound and refinement. The two of them together, in an enchanting performance of Cui's gorgeous "Statue at Tsarskoye Selo" simply made it obvious that vocal tones and piano tones are the same thing, both made of quiet light.

Mr. Salters's genius for telling stories in music appeared not just in Ravel's "Histoires Naturelles" (with, again, superb playing from Mr. Zobel) but also in William Bolcom's new "Naumburg Cycle," a group of seven songs made with skill, care and generosity for this occasion and this singer, but surely destined to live on, and therefore in need of a more compelling title.

Mr. Bolcom's work honored Mr. Salters's African heritage in setting texts by Langston Hughes ("Ballad of theLandlord") and Arnold Weinstein ("Africa"), by bringing shades of stride piano into the accompaniments, and by doing both with utter naturalness. As might be expected from this composer, the music swims surely between popular and art, idioms. It allowed Mr. Salters to express self-certainty, as well as a wry sense of human weakness.

The audience wouldn't let Mr. Salters go without encores (Strauss's Morgen & Joshua Fit the Battleof Jericho...

He will be back.

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