Manheim Except in hip-hop music and a few other genres of African-American origin, the multiple-guest-stars "and Friends" format generally comes off as tired. For that reason and several others, this release by American guitarist Sharon Isbin had no right to work as well as it does. Isbin brings together an extremely diverse group of guitarists, including rock's Steve Vai and Nancy Wilson and jazz player Stanley Jordan, throws in a saxophone solo by Paul Winter, includes vocals, and rewrites music as necessary to make pieces like Heart's "Dreamboat Annie" fit the predominant Latin theme. Several of the pieces receive their world premieres here, and all these experiments bump up against purely traditional guitar repertory, like Segovia's arrangement of Isaac Albeniz's Asturias. The album comes together, and is all the more satisfying for being so unlikely, because Isbin has the musicianship and drive to communicate with an audience to make it work. Part of the credit goes to producer David Frost, who sonically coordinates all the forces involved Vai's contributions to his own arrangement of Agustín Barrios-Mangore's Allegro are delicately balanced against Isbin's playing. Another part is due to Isbin's own talents she gets an uncannily wide variety of timbres out of the pair of classical guitars she plays. But on top of all this is her sheer musicality: she has the indefinable ability, common to great performers, to combine diverse material and diverse musical forces, and make them all her own. A sterling example of the crossover classical guitar album.