This is a beautiful, bold, and brilliant offering from a master musician. In her double CD, Nightlight/Daylight, guitarist Muriel Anderson has surrounded herself with the likes of Victor Wooten, Stanley Jordan, Danny Gottleib, Earl Klugh, and Tommy Emmanuel and painted a striking aural portrait of the delight and splendor found in single rotation of the earth on its axis.

Anderson wrote and recorded the project for a newborn child and the child’s parents. This is not an edgy collection.  Anderson has smoothed all the edges over and cushioned the arrangements with wordless background vocals and strings, rendering it, as intended, a quiet and positive reflection on life. If you’re looking for edgy, pick up a copy of her collaboration with Tierra Negra, New World Flamenco.  If you want buoyant, listen to her live recording, Hometown Live. But, if you want beautiful and soothing, look no farther than this collection of gorgeously envisioned and performed songs. The imaginative packaging which alights with stars and fireflies upon pressing the image of the moon is also sure to please children and tired parents alike.

Nightlight opens with a beautiful, simple, and rhythmically hypnotic composition, Ferryboat crossing. The song features Anderson’s, lovely touch, playing a repeating figure on classical guitar, subtle backing vocals, and tasteful electric guitar flourishes courtesy of Phil Keaggy. Daylight closes the project twenty four hours later with Pray, a contemplative and reflective song with lyrics and harmony vocals by Beth Chapman. Highlights from sunrise to sunrise include jazzy take on Faint of Heart, a Vince Gill/Al Anderson composition that features Anderson trading solos with Stanley Jordan and Earl Klugh, and Here Comes the Sun, which rightly represents the dawn of the Daylight CD.

And, to be sure, there are some up-tempo offerings appearing, appropriately, in the evening hours of Daylight.  A Bakers Dozen is a knuckle-busting virtuoso performance with Anderson on harp guitar and Danny Gottlieb on drums. Anderson pairs again with Gottlieb on the tasty shredfest of Bluegrass Medley in which on solo guitar she mimics clawhammer banjo, five-string banjo, mandolin, bass and fiddle. Superstition with Gottlieb on drums, Victor Wooten on bass, and Mark Kibble doing a fair copy of Stevie Wonder’s vocals, is funky and rollicking.

Although Anderson’s fine guitar work is front and center in the arrangements, fans who found her through her solo work may be disappointed to learn of the lush production.  Fear not: the set is sprinkled with solo gems. Dandelions and Winter Shores are simple and elegant solo pieces for six string guitar while Anderson renders Beethoven’s Prelude to Joy a tour de force tremolo performance. Sweet Child is a smooth and lilting medication on harp guitar.

There is certainly a range of texture, tempo, and emotion in this collection… But, make no mistake, this is music intended to make you feel secure and happy. In that it succeeds, well, quite happily.

Highly recommended.