The late cabaret critic Bob Harrington once wrote, "There is no more beautiful musical instrument than the voice of Nancy LaMott." And, I might have to agree. LaMott possessed a rich, lush, honey-toned sound that could be soft, sweet and creamy one minute and big and belty the next. She also possessed a remarkable ability to find the emotional center of any song, bringing a lyric to life as honestly as possible. She could take a warhorse of a song — listen to her definitive version of "Moon River" — and bring it back to full life, and she had a gift for choosing songs that fit perfectly together: "Not a Day Goes By" and "Good Thing Going" was one exceptional medley, and "Out of This World" and "So in Love" another.

Well, fans of the late singer have reason to rejoice this week. David Friedman — LaMott's friend, the gifted composer of several of her signature tunes and the man to whom she entrusted her recorded legacy — has finally reached an agreement with LaMott's family and her estate that will allow him to reissue her several recordings and create new ones from a wealth of unreleased material.

Friedman had promised his friend on her deathbed (LaMott lost her battle with cancer in 1995 at the age of 44) that he would continue to release her recordings until the entire world heard her sing. LaMott's estate and family almost made that promise impossible, but a recent agreement will now allow the composer/conductor to fulfill that vow. I spoke with an excited Friedman about the news earlier this week. He explained that the agreement was reached with "a lot of quiet, behind-the-scenes work. [LaMott's musical director] Christopher Marlow had a lot to do with it — just speaking to people and saying, 'Look, David holds the rights [to Nancy's recordings]. You're not going to be able to do anything with them. There's all this material [available for release].' And everybody, one by one, the family and the estate, signed."

Friedman plans to issue several new CDs as well as videos/DVDs of concerts LaMott performed throughout her career. "I have a box full of material," Friedman told me, "a lot of stuff that Bradshaw Smith recorded, stuff from television, stuff from her early years. It varies in quality — you're not going to get anything that's been done in the studio. We have live performances from San Francisco. We have all the club acts from Don't Tell Mama, and you see her different weight, her different hairdos during the years, all sorts of demos that she did. It's really interesting."

The composer, who is currently busy rehearsing his new revue, Listen to My Heart: The Songs of David Friedman (performances begin Oct. 9 at Upstairs at Studio 54), also hopes to create a television film about LaMott's life. "We actually have a treatment for a movie of the week," said Friedman, "and we're starting to put that together about her life. I did the treatment years ago. We did her life story and put it down. And Victoria Lang, my producer of Listen to My Heart, wants to work on it with me, and I have various people who want to work on it, and [LaMott's friend] Kathie Lee [Gifford], of course, is very excited about it, and she'll do anything to promote that."

Friedman hopes to release a LaMott CD or video by the spring of 2004. For more information about LaMott, Friedman or to purchase LaMott's existing recordings (“Beautiful Baby,” “Come Rain or Come Shine: The Songs of Johnny Mercer,” “My Foolish Heart,” “Just in Time for Christmas” and “Listen to My Heart” and the posthumously issued “What’s Good About Goodbye?"), visit www.middermusic.com.