Guitarist Lee Ritenour decided to celebrate his 50th year as a guitar player by inviting a bevy of name guitarists into the studio to jam out some tunes, all in the name of love for their chosen instrument. Ritenour's subsequent album, 2010's 6 String Theory, is just that, a varied celebration on the many styles and players who have utilized the guitar. The result is an expansive, ambitious, but never belabored album that touches on jazz, blues, funk, and rock and expands beyond the usual Ritenour approach while remaining true to his unique six-string sound.

Dave Grusin and Lee Ritenour were well advised to choose a more traditional constellation for the recordings and so, real drummers, percussionists, acoustic pianos, acoustic or semi-acoustic guitars were used, though Grusin didn't want to give up his keyboards completely. Fortunately he held back with them, and so we have to do with a relatively typical west coast jazz fusion disc from the eighties, but quite above average.
The interest for Latin influences is remarkable. Not only were compositions by Ivan Lins chosen, but on Harlequin (Arlequim Desconhecido), the opener, the composer is used as a singer, also on the song Before It's Too Late (Antes Que Seja Tarde), thus bringing him closer to the American and international audience. And he sings in his native language, Portuguese…

This Lee Ritenour twin pack consists of two albums that were originally recorded by JVC for the Japanese market and saw release in the U.S., almost as an afterthought. The proof of this is that Rio and On the Line were licensed for American issue first by Elektra before getting their subsequent GRP packages. By the time GRP put them on the market, these packages were separated by a decade in terms of recording time. Rio is an all acoustic recording which has aged quite nicely over the decades, while On the Line, with three different bands and a handful of direct-to-some-kind-of-digital processes, sounds flat, dated, and in places simply tired. Hardcore Rit fans won't care, but novices should be wary.

BRASIL, the new album by Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin is a showcase for the unique talents of two of the most successful and influential musicians of their generation - It has been an enduring friendship and collaboration, from playing the famed Baked Potato in Los Angeles in the 70s, to collaborations on Dave's records and films and Lee's albums, plus years of touring together on the biggest stages

GRP's generally well-chosen 1991 Collection covers an entire decade of Lee Ritenour releases from Elektra and GRP. As such, those years seem to form a late-'70s plateau descending into a commercial valley by the early part of the '80s and then gradually ascending a slope as Rit's playing grows and deepens in the decade's final years. Some of the high points are the Latin-inflected numbers from Festival ("Latin Lover") and Portrait ("Asa") and two excellent straight-ahead excerpts from Stolen Moments ("24th Street Blues," "Waltz for Carmen"), the latter two with lots of Wes Montgomery-like octave work. And even "Is It You?," Ritenour's pop hit from 1981, comes off as a good, catchy piece of record-making. Recommended for those who only want a sample of Lee Ritenour's voluminous solo output.

A Twist of Rit is Lee Ritenour’s new 2015 Concord Records release. A star-studded band performs a number of new compositions combining with fresh, “twisted” versions of some of his earliest funky, fusion material from the 70s and early 80s. Combining some of the hottest rhythm players out there, including Ron Bruner Jr., Chris Coleman, Dave Weckl, Melvin Davis, Paulinho Da Costa, Michael Thompson, John Beasley, Patrice Rushen, and Dave Grusin with a five piece Horn Section and Ernie Watts on tenor sax, A Twist of Rit will make for one of his most special releases to date.

For several years, decades in fact, a lost gem issued originally not just in the US but in the UK as well (and our vinyl pressings were always much better than their US counterparts), on Chrysalis records who, for a while, had some very good material in this genre, for example the two Auracle albums (and wouldn't lots of us like to get those on CD). But finally it's now reappeared on CD and how very nice it is to be reacquainted with it in that format. Anyway, this album ~ his second, as far as I know ~ features a host of jazz luminaries of the day (Hancock, Erskine, Pastorius, Carlton, Ritenour, Gadd, etc.) and its only failing is its mildly raw upper registers, though thankfully there are no vocals to pollute the proceedings and Jaco Pastorius' electric bass work is of truly sterling calibre. On this album, if anywhere, you can hear why he was held in such very high esteem by his contemporaries.

A very large group session recorded in March 1976 for Fantasy, Everybody Come on Out features Turrentine with Joe Sample, Lee Ritenour, Craig McMullen, Paul Jackson, Harvey Mason, Bill Summers, and Dawilli Gonga.

Rit 2 album by Lee Ritenour was released Jan 25, 2005 on the Collectables label. As a producer and musical arranger, Lee Ritenour has proven to be a tasteful genius, and it never shows more strongly than on here.

LA Workshop Norwegain Wood II is a project arranged by LA Workshop. This album features Lee Ritenour, Joe Sample, Steve Lukather, Jeff Porcaro, Richard Tee, Jeffrey Vanston and more great musicians from the sessiondays.