JOHN STEIN, Among Friends

 One of the most remarkable aspects of veteran guitarist John Stein’s musical life is that while the Kansas City, MO native began playing guitar at seven years old and played in local rock bands as a teenager, he waited until he was 30 to focus on music – and jazz in particular – as a career.

After a short stint in college, he hightailed it to Vermont, where he spent nearly a decade practicing his natural gifts for carpentry while living in the backwoods with a wood stove and zero electricity. As the story goes, after a few years of wandering, he got serious about the guitar and creating a life dedicated to music. He started playing and writing with musicians in Vermont, where country, folk and rock held court. While developing his guitar chops, he graduated from Berklee and was invited to teach there – and remained for 36 years until his retirement in 2020. Later, living in Boston in the 90s, he got a steady gig playing in duet settings with female vocalists at a café.

On his 20th album Among Friends, Stein collaborates beautifully and seamlessly with two friends from these unique eras of his early career – cellist Chris White and vocalist Fay Whittaker. Though the hip freshness, sensitivity and excitement they bring to the 11-track set of standards and originals makes the project sound like it was recorded today, the reality is that it’s a never before released gem Stein recorded much earlier in his career.

In 1997, not long after Stein began his acclaimed string of recordings, he invited White and Whitaker to his home for a live session in his living room using just a DAT recorder, mixer and some mics he borrowed from Berklee. They recorded four stellar trio pieces and two guitar/cello duets. Stein later recorded four guitar/vocal duets with Whitaker in his office at Berklee. While the set gives Stein’s longtime fans insight into the artist’s early development as a world class guitarist, the real joy of Among Friends is the way he interacts with the intensely emotional textures of White’s cello and Whitaker’s rich, deep soul voice.

Marked by stellar, intricate arrangements that are alternately heartfelt/sensitive winsomely swinging, the Songbook repertoire includes “I Thought About You,” “It Might As Well Be Spring,” “Since I Fell For You” and “Prelude to a Kiss,” while Stein showcases his strong early chops as a composer on tunes like “Sarlat” (a minor key guitar/cello duet) and the hopeful ballad “Our Love Will See Us Through.”