NANCY HARROW
Winter Dreams (Artists House)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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After coming on the scene as a bop-inspired vocalist in the early sixties, Nancy Harrow split her career between publishing and music, a fitting background for her latest project, Winter Dreams, which is sub-titled The Life And Passions Of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The album is a song cycle based on Fitzgerald's life and work, with Harrow and Grady Tate sharing vocal duties over a score featuring an all-star cast of jazz soloists.

The music is designed to evoke the period of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, the so-called "Jazz Age," and it accomplishes that goal admirably, largely because of the efforts of the instrumental soloists, including trumpeter Michael Mossman, reedman Bill Easley, bassist Rufus Reid, saxophonist Frank Wess and trombonist John Mosca.

Some of the tracks have a musical theatre quality that propels the narrative quality of the work, while others echo the standards tradition. The music was arranged by the late Sir Roland Hanna, to whom the project is dedicated.

It's also notable that the album is the debut release for the revival of producer John Snyder's Artist House Records, which Snyder has resurrected as a non-profit enterprise which he has designed to explore new models of marketing and distribution while allowing for full artist ownership of the music. That's a venture worthy of support, and this is music well worth hearing.

Track List:

This Side Of Paradise * You'll Never Get To East Egg * Winter Dreams * Michael Mossman * The Extra Mile * Oh, God I'm Sophisticated * Dear Max * My Swan * Beloved Infidel * Until It Comes Up Love * My Lost City * The Old Pro * Winter Dreams

[Pick this up at www.artistdirect.com.]

© 2003 - Shaun Dale