Wow! I had no idea anybody was making recordings like this anymore. When jazz first lapped at my consciousness in the early 1970s, soloist-and-rhythm-with-strings sessions like this were everywhere. And it wasn't just mood-music schlock. Real artists did the string thing: McCoy Tyner's Fly Like The Wind, Bobby Hutcherson's Natural Expressions and any number of CTI and Verve records had that sound. Guitarist Fred Fried must have heard and loved that sound, because that's what he offers on six of the nine tracks of this 43-minute cd. Fried plays an acoustic guitar with an added low A string and studied with the master of the seven-string, George Van Eps, but it's Bill Evans who's most often evoked here, both in the harmonic subtlety of the compositions (all originals) and their low-key presentation. There are cases where the strings are merely decorative, like the charming waltz "Children Can Fly," which has a melody pretty enough to stand on its own. In other places, Richard De Rosa's arrangements add a nice flavor to self-effacing compositions. The chilly little shiver that opens "Pathos" is like a little overture for the pensive music that follows. And the two minutes of bleak, Shostakovichian strings on the title cut contrasts nicely with the Brazilian warmth of the uptempo melody. But Fried's trio of the underrated Steve LaSpina on bass and solid drummer Billy Drummond can more than hold their own, as they prove on the Methenian "Let's Go For A Ride" and the nicely chromatic "The Rain," both of which feature fine bass solos from LaSpina. The recording is clear, if appropriately resonant, and the entire enterprise just reeks of musicality and good taste, two qualities as rare as . . . well, soloist-and-rhythm-with-strings sessions.