Jazz Times Review - Bill Milkowski On Songs for Singing, Beck’s partner is 28-year-old Lee Barbour, a versatile guitarist from Charleston, S.C., who alternately plays in a Gypsy-jazz group and a modern, post-bop quartet called Gradual Lean. Together they offer intriguing twists on jazz standards and familiar tunes by the Beatles, Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman. Beck’s role in this duet setting is different from his free-flowing interactions with Abercrombie. Primarily utilizing his patented alto guitar, Beck expertly comps behind Barbour’s melodic lines and fleet-fingered solos while simultaneously playing deep-toned walking basslines, as on “Can’t Get Started,” Coleman’s “Turnaround” and Barbour’s own “Q’s Blues.” The two engage in delicate interplay on two Beatles themes, “Norwegian Wood” and “Michelle,” as well as on a sublime version of “Monk’s Dream.” Barbour brings some subversive energy to bear with his edgy fretless guitar work on top of Beck’s arpeggiated accompaniment to “Bye Bye Blackbird.” And on a particularly audacious interpretation of “When I Fall in Love,” he plays his fretless ax with distortion pedal set on stun, sounding like a crazed Sonny Landreth on the warpath. Though they may be two generations apart (Beck is 62), these two plectorists demonstrate a winning chemistry on Songs for Singing.