By the time Carlos Barbosa-Lima recorded his first album at the tender age of 12, his two colleagues on this splendid session had already established strong international reputations as great artists and trend setters.

Laurindo Almeida, a respected concert performer in his native Brazil by the time Carlos was born in 1944, had revealed his jazz side through historic associations with band leader Stan Kenton and reed man Bud Shank.

Charlie Byrd, the jazzman who counted Django Reinhardt among his earliest jamming partners and showed the jazz world a nylon string guitar could swing, had studied with Andres Segovia and begun a lifelong flirtation with the classical idiom.

In the intervening years, as Almeida and Byrd worked both the classical and jazz sides of the street and played important roles in popularizing the new Brazilian popular music, young Barbosa-Lima refined his classical technique, drawing upon what he called "the integration of style" that mixed the orthodox Spanish methods with more unconventional Brazilian influences.

In Music Of the Brazilian Masters, the three guitarists met to explore a tradition that stretches over more than a century. The men were good friends -- artists who genuinely admired the others' contributions and musicianship. That palpable warmth and a common sense of purpose are what make this uncommon collection sparkle.