Lee Ritenour

All Music Guide:

Known to fans as "Captain Fingers" for his uncommon dexterity on the guitar, Lee Ritenour is a noted jazz artist and session musician who has been one of the leaders in his field since the early '70s. Born in Los Angeles, California on January 11, 1952, Ritenour took up the guitar when he was eight years old, and decided to make music his career when he was 12. Ritenour's parents were supportive of his ambitions, and arranged for him to study with some of the best guitar teachers in Southern California. At 15, he joined a rock band called the Esquires, and when John Phillips heard Ritenour at work, he invited him to play on an upcoming session by the Mamas and the Papas; it was the first record date for the 16-year-old guitarist. While Ritenour's tastes were eclectic and he worked with a number of rock and soul artists, he had a special passion for jazz, citing Wes Montgomery as a key influence, and within a few years he was playing prestigious gigs with the likes of Lena Horne and Tony Bennett. Ritenour took time off from his career to attend the University of Southern California, where he studied classical guitar under Christopher Parkening, but he returned to work after two-and-a-half years. By the mid-'70s, Ritenour was one of the top session musicians in Los Angeles, lending his talents to albums by the likes of Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Natalie Cole, the Bee Gees, and Quincy Jones, as well as jazz projects with Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Alphonso Johnson, and Stanley Turrentine. Ritenour also had a keen interest in Brazilian and Latin sounds; he toured with Sergio Mendes in 1973, and recorded with Flora Purim, Gato Barbieri, and Paulinho Da Costa.

In 1976, Ritenour stepped into the spotlight with his first solo album, First Course, a polished jazz-pop effort released by Epic Records. After cutting four albums for Epic, Ritenour moved to the Elektra-distributed Discovery imprint with 1978's The Captain's Journey, the first of seven albums he'd cut for Elektra and its offshoots. In 1985, Ritenour recorded Harlequin with pianist Dave Grusin; the two would become frequent collaborators, and Grusin's GRP label would release the lion's share of Ritenour's solo work well into the 21st century. In 1990, Ritenour played on the sessions for Bob James' album Grand Piano Canyon, along with bassist Nathan East and drummer Harvey Mason; the musicians enjoyed working together so much they formed a group, and Ritenour, James, East, and Mason released their first album as Fourplay in 1991. The Fourplay album was a significant commercial success, and Ritenour would cut two more LPs with the combo, 1993's Between the Sheets and 1994's Elixir, before exiting the group, with Larry Carlton taking his place. While Ritenour maintained a busy schedule with his solo work and his projects with Dave Grusin and Bob James, he continued to do frequent session work (it has been estimated Ritenour has played on 3,000 different recordings) as well as performing live around the world. In 2005, Ritenour changed labels, releasing his album Overtime with Concord Records, and in 2010, he issued Six String Theory, in which he collaborated with a diverse range of fellow guitarists, including B.B. King, George Benson, Keb' Mo', Pat Martino, and many more. 2012 found Ritenour releasing another collaborative effort, Rhythm Sessions, which included a number of stellar guest artists (Dave Grusin, Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Chick Corea, and Patrice Rushen among them) along with the winners of a musical talent competition Ritenour organized in 2010.

Wikipedia:

Lee Mack Ritenour (born January 11, 1952) is an American jazz guitarist who has recorded over 42 albums, appeared on over 3000 sessions, and has charted over 30 instrumental and vocal contemporary jazz hits since 1976. One of his most popular songs was the hit “Is It You” in 1981. Ritenour is considered to be a pioneer in the Contemporary Jazz and jazz-funk genres of music.. Guitar Player Magazine awarded him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for the year 2010. His highly acclaimed and popular 2010 hit album Lee Ritenour's 6 String Theory had numerous awards in 2011 including, Guitar Album of the Year – Guitar International Magazine. UK’s Guitarist Magazine: The No. 1 Best 50 Guitar Albums of 2010. JAZZIZ Magazine Publisher’s Album of the Year. Top Albums of 2010 from Canada’s “The Guardian”. Lee was awarded at the 2011 Echo Awards in Germany (the German Grammy awards) for Best International Instrumentalist (Guitar) in conjunction with the album, 6 String Theory)

Biography [edit]

Ritenour was born January 11, 1952 in Los Angeles, California. He played his first session when he was 16 with the Mamas & the Papas and given the moniker, "Captain Fingers", because of his manual dexterity on the guitar. Ritenour was a sought-after session guitarist by the mid-1970s, and won Guitar Player magazine's Best Studio Guitarist twice in the 1970s. He is noted for playing his red Gibson ES-335 and his Gibson L5 guitars.

One of his most notable influences is the pioneering jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery among others like Joe Pass, Kenny Burrell and John McLaughlin. His prolific career includes a Grammy Award for the collaborative work Harlequin (1985), and 19 other Grammy nominations. Ritenour also holds the distinction of having two of the promotional videos for his songs "Is It You" and "Mr. Briefcase" being played during MTV's first day. Ritenour has been at the top of many guitar polls throughout the world.

Throughout his career, Ritenour has experimented with different styles of music. A true fusionist, he has often incorporated elements of funk, pop, rock, blues, Brazilian and most recently with Amparo (2008), classical music with jazz. In the early 1980s, Ritenour was given his own Ibanez signature model guitar, the LR-10. The LR-10 was produced from 1981 to 1987. It can be heard exclusively on his album Rit. Currently, Ritenour plays the Gibsons that he first played in the 1970s (the ES-335 and L5), and now also plays his signature Lee Ritenour Model archtop guitar made by Gibson.

Style [edit]

Ritenour's solo career began in 1975 with the recording of his album First Course. Released in 1976, the album gave a strong representation of the mid-1970s L.A. Jazz/Funk sound. Critics did, however, complain that his first album was "lightweight." So Lee countered this with his strongly crossover-based follow up, Captain Fingers. This was followed by two more crossover efforts—The Captain's Journey (1978) and Feel The Night (1979). On these albums, Ritenour primarily used something of a rich, yet rock-oriented distorted guitar sound, coming from his Gibson ES-335 guitar. In other instances on these albums, clean sounds were heard coming from his Gibson L5 and classical acoustic guitars (he played his classical acoustic guitars almost exclusively on his album Rio in 1979). In the 1970s, Ritenour would often use effects like wah-wah, phasers, chorus, and flangers on his electric instruments. Also, during the late 1970s, Ritenour can be heard using the 360 Systems guitar synthesizer (he is pictured sitting in front of it on the back cover of his Captain Fingers album). He can be heard using the synthesizer on the track Captain Fingers (from the album with the same title), and can also be heard playing solo with the synthesizer on the song "What Do You Want?" from The Captain's Journey.

In 1979, Ritenour "was brought in to beef up one of Pink Floyd's The Wall's heaviest rock numbers, "Run Like Hell"." He also played "uncredited rhythm guitar" on "One Of My Turns".

As the 1980s began, Ritenour began to add stronger elements of pop to his music, beginning with Rit in 1981. For this, he kept with his distorted sound, now using his Ibanez LR-10 signature model guitar. One of tracks from "Rit", entitled, "Is It You" featuring vocals from Eric Tagg became a hit reaching number fifteen on the pop chart and number twenty-seven on the soul chart. He continued with the pop-oriented music for two albums after Rit (Rit/2 in 1982 and Banded Together in 1984), while releasing a slick, yet more crossover-styled, Direct-Disk instrumental album in 1983 called On The Line. He also provided rhythm guitar on Tom Browne's hit, Funkin' for Jamaica.

In 1985, he recorded his first album for GRP with Dave Grusin, entitled Harlequin. It featured Lee primarily on his classical acoustic guitar and also featured Brazilian singer/songwriter Ivan Lins. Up to this point, this album along with Rio arguably gave the strongest representation of Lee's Brazilian influences.

The following year, 1986, Ritenour released the album Earth Run, which featured him using the then-newly designed SynthAxe guitar. He used nine different guitars on the album, most notably the SynthAxe, his Valley Arts guitar, and his Gibson Chet Atkins acoustic. The album also featured long-time collaborator Phil Perry for the first time, on the track "If I'm Dreaming, Don't Wake Me" — a song also featuring David Foster and Maurice White. He also produced songs and played guitar on Deniece Williams's LP Hot on the Trail during that same year.

Ritenour continued in a direction strongly featuring other artists in 1987, with Portrait. The album itself has something of a strong smooth-jazz sound, and Ritenour can be heard here playing with The Yellowjackets, Djavan, and Kenny G.!

In 1988, his smooth jazz-influenced Brazilian music came to the forefront with Festival — another album strongly featuring his work on nylon-string acoustic guitars. The following album, Color Rit, continued with a similar mood. He did however, change direction completely again with his straight-ahead jazz album Stolen Moments. Sounding similar to Wes Montgomery, Ritenour played alongside long-time collaborator, saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent, bassist John Patitucci (playing only acoustic) and drummer Harvey Mason. Continuing in a Wes Montgomery mood, Ritenour paid tribute to the man himself in 1992, with his album Wes Bound. The album featured a number of covers of Montgomery compositions, as well as some seemingly tributary pieces from Ritenour himself.

Also seen in this decade was a 1994 collaboration album with guitarist Larry Carlton called Larry & Lee.

In 1991 Lee Ritenour, together with keyboard player Bob James, formed the Grammy-nominated contemporary jazz group Fourplay. Lee left the hugely successful group in 1998 to continue with his own solo works. He was replaced by Larry Carlton.

2002 saw the release of his album, Rit's House.

In February 2004, Ritenour completed a project looking back on his career involving musicians he has worked with throughout his career called Overtime. Overtime was recorded live in a studio in front of a small audience. It was released in early 2005, and is currently available as a singular audio CD, double-DVD set or singular HD DVD. Some of the musicians featured include Dave Grusin, Patrice Rushen, Harvey Mason, Alex Acuna, Taylor Dayne, Nathan East, Chris Botti, Anthony Jackson, Melvin Lee Davis, and Ernie Watts, amongst many others.

His album entitled Smoke n' Mirrors was released in late August 2006. His son Wesley makes his debut appearance as a drummer on the album at the age of 13. This album contains Ritenour's version of Bill Withers' 1978 hit "Lovely Day".

Ritenour joined the 10th annual Independent Music Awards judging panel to assist independent musicians' careers. He was also a judge for the 8th and 9th Independent Music Awards.

In June 2010, in order to celebrate his fifty years as a guitarist, Lee Ritenour released the album 6 String Theory (in reference to 6 musical areas covered by the use of guitar). The album featured famous guitarists such as Steve Lukather, Neal Schon, John Scofield, Slash, Pat Martino, Mike Stern, George Benson and B.B.King, but also younger players such as Andy McKee, Joe Robinson and Guthrie Govan. Ritenour, YamahaCorporation, The Berklee College of Music, Concord Records, Monster Cable, and D'Addario Strings collaborated to create the 2010 Yamaha 6 String Theory Guitar Competition. The winner of that international competition, that included guitarists from over 45 countries, was 16-year-old Canadian classical guitarist Shon Boublil. The competition in 2011 is continuing.