Nancy Harrow

Lost Lady is a song cycle by the New York singer Nancy Harrow, who wrote all of its words and music, recorded at Sear Sound in New York on 28 and 30 June and 29 November 1993 and released by Soul Note in 1994. In an interview with Marc Myers for JazzWax, Harrow said it was the first of her albums of songs based on novels, in this case a novel by Willa Cather, and that the project needed a male voice. That voice is Vernel Bagneris, who sings with her.

The band is Phil Woods on alto saxophone and clarinet, Dick Katz on piano, who also wrote the arrangements, Ray Drummond on bass and Ben Riley on drums. Harrow produced the record, Malcolm Addey engineered it and Dan Morgenstern wrote the liner notes. The thirteen songs are short, most between two and a half and four minutes, and the whole runs a little over 48 minutes. The title song is heard twice, on its own and in a medley with Happy Days, and Happy Days returns as the closing coda, so two themes tie the cycle together. Titles such as Railroad Man, The House on the Low Round Hill, Putting On Airs and Angry Blues follow the story through its characters and places. Harrow had already recorded her own songs for the label on Secrets, made in 1990 and 1991, and the novel-based approach continued with The Adventures of Maya the Bee, recorded in 1998.

This is the Soul Note CD 121263-2, first released in 1994.