Besides these releases, Lee's guitar work, as well as his role as producer, can also be heard on many other artist's releases. For a complete listing of these works click here.
Putting together classical masterpieces and jazz colorings is not always an easy marriage. But
when jazz superstars Dave Grusin and Lee Ritenour teamed up for the Grammy-nominated
album Two Worlds eight years ago, they received raves for their groundbreaking fusion of these
genres.
Now, they’re back with Amparo, a new album on Decca that melds music by such iconic
classical composers as Maurice Ravel, George Frederic Handel, Tomas Albinoni, and Gabriel
Faure with their unique approach. Ever innovative, the duo also stirs in such artistic surprises as
pop vocal legend James Taylor, opera superstar Renee Fleming, master classical violinist Joshua
Bell, and popular jazz trumpeter Chris Botti into their unique blend.
The album is a masterful and mesmerizing mix that includes new arrangements written by
Grusin of many popular classical selections, including not just Faure’s Pavane, an excerpt from
Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, Albinoni’s G minor Adagio, and a duet from Handel’s opera
Rinaldo, but other musical colors as well. There’s also a suite of Latin-inspired works penned by
Dave Grusin himself (Three Latin American Dances), a Ritenour original composition newly
arranged by Ritenour and Grusin (Echos), as well as the track which inspired the album’s title:
Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Olha Maria (Amparo).
“For me,” reveals Grusin, “the joy of this project is really in the process: selecting repertoire, re-
imagining it in new settings, and hopefully creating something that draws something new out of
old favorites. It’s a labor of love.”
Composer, arranger and pianist Dave Grusin can rightly be called Hollywood royalty. An Oscar
winner for his score for The Milagro Beanfield War, he has written over sixty other scores,
including such Oscar-nominated scores as The Champ, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Firm,
Havana, Heaven Can Wait, and On Golden Pond.
From his scores for The Graduate to For the Boys to Selena to Mulholland Falls, Grusin has
proved himself to be an endlessly inventive and evocative film composer. His work for television
is just as impressive; among many other credits, he wrote the theme songs for such famous series
as “Maude,” “Good Times,” and “St. Elsewhere.”
However, jazz is Grusin’s artistic home, and a genre he has long championed as both a performer
and as a businessman. Along with Larry Rosen, Grusin co-founded GRP Records, whose roster
included such jazz luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Chick Corea, Spyro Gyra, the Brecker
brothers, David Benoit, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Yellowjackets, The Rippingtons,
Stephane Grappelli, Diana Krall, Daine Shuur, Dave Valentine--and guitarist Lee Ritenour, a
frequent artistic partner. (Their collaboration on the GRP album Harlequin won a Grammy in
1985.)
Another powerhouse force in contemporary jazz, Ritenour (nicknamed “Captain Fingers”) has
recorded over forty albums as a solo artist, including the 1993 chart-smashing tribute to Wes
Montgomery titled Wes Bound and 1997’s A Twist of Jobim, an homage to the iconic Brazilian
songwriter Antonio Carlos [“Tom”] Jobim.
That Jobim-focused album led to what became a trio of Twist projects: 2001’s A Twist of Marley,
which paid tribute to the Jamaican reggae legend, and 2003’s A Twist of Motown. The recipient
of some seventeen Grammy nominations, Ritenour is also a founding member of the
groundbreaking soul/jazz/funk fusion band Fourplay, a longtime favorite group on the Billboard
contemporary jazz chart.
Considering these two great artists’ long-held reputations for combining genre-bending
innovations with the highest artistic quality, it was natural when they decided to venture down a
new path in 2000 with their Decca album Two Worlds. A huge chart hit that remained on
Billboard’s Classical Chart for 51 weeks, Two Worlds forged a unique mixture of classical music
and jazz that enchanted fans of both genres. Joined by world-class superstar artists like soprano
Renee Fleming and violinist Gil Shaham, Ritenour and Grusin created a mood that was both
extremely respectful of the original works by composers like Bach, Bartok, and Villa-Lobos and
also tapped into a new musical vein.
“Chris Roberts, the Chairman of Decca Label Group/President of Universal Music Classics and
Jazz International, has really been like our third partner on Two Worlds and now Amparo,”
Ritenour notes. “We’ve both had long relationships with him, and when he suggested that we
explore classical music together, we were quite intrigued.”
As a follow-up to the monumental success of Two Worlds, Amparo is both a celebration of great
music and of a lasting friendship. “I’ve known Dave since I was eighteen years old!” Ritenour
says. “We go back such a long way, and we’ve shared so much.”
The similarities in their lives didn’t just begin with their professional interactions, however.
“We’ve had similar musical beginnings, rooted in classical music and in jazz,” Grusin observes.
“We grew up with the classical music repertoire, and Amparo gives us another chance to delve
back into that world together.”
Grusin adds that Amparo gives the duo another opportunity as well. “There is very little original
classical music scored for piano and guitar,” he observes. “So we have the chance to really add to
the literature. That’s a big part of the fun!”
The all-star lineup on Amparo is breathtaking to fans of all kinds of good music, but to musicians
like Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin, it’s more a matter of hooking up with friends old and new.
As Grusin says, “In this business, there is a huge mutual admiration society! So it wasn’t all that
hard to get guest artists like James Taylor, Renee Fleming, Chris Botti, and Joshua Bell involved
—the hardest part was getting everyone’s schedules straightened out!”
Adds Ritenour, “Amparo actually took a whole year to put together, simply because it was so
dif?cult to ?nd studio time for artists like Renee and Josh, who travel constantly around the
world and have their schedules set years in advance.”
Most of the arrangements on Amparo were done by Dave Grusin. “What is challenging,” Grusin
observes, “is to design settings that are not meant to throw our guests into a sound that they’ve
never experienced before, but instead to put them in a situation in which they feel very
comfortable. For example, it took an enormous amount of research to ?nd something for James
Taylor, who has been a close friend of ours for many years. We knew that we wanted to do an old
English song, but it was hard to ?nd something that lyrically didn’t feel stilted or funny. So many
of those lyrics are ‘Hey, nonny, nonny’ things that just didn’t suit James. So we were so happy to
discover the 17th-century song ‘Since First I Saw Your Face,’ a sweet love song from the period.
It’s a perfect ?t.”
That breath of fresh inspiration is what drives Amparo. “Why do these arrangements?” muses
Grusin. “Well, when I go back and listen to the duet arrangement I did for Faure’s Pavane, it
becomes something of a new piece. This is stuff we already know so well, but new arrangements
let you hear great music in a different light. That’s my hope.”
Hi, Lee, how are you? I'm organizing a big event in Japan, about 15 musician will be attending within two days. They'll play Earth Wind and Fire songs and African traditional music. All of the musicians are great...I'm so blessed! Please stop by If there's any chance for you to come :) Hope all is well with you!
What a sincere pleasure it was to share the bill with you at The Coach House this week! You filled the place with amazing music and spirit! We all hope you will come back soon! Wishing you and yours continued blessings! Hope to see you soon! Connie Rae
In just two weeks, Bill Champlin will be touring the West Coast in support of his new CD / DVD, "No Place Left To Fall", currently available by clicking the widget on his sites. Joining Bill will be Tamara Champlin, on vocals, along with Jerry Lopez, Rochon Westmoreland, Eddie Garcia, and Jamie Hosmer, of Santa Fe and The Fat City Horns.
Tickets are on sale now
Friday, November 6 • San Juan Capistrano, CA - Coach House - 949-496-8930
Saturday, November 7 • San Diego, CA - Anthology - 619-595-0300
Sunday, November 8 • Redondo Beach, CA - Brixton South Bay - 310-406-1931
Tuesday, November 10 • Santa Cruz, CA - Moe's Alley - 831-479-1854
Wednesday, November 11 • Mill Valley, CA - Throckmorton Theatre - 415-383-9600
Thursday, November 12 • Tuolumne, CA - Black Oak Casino - 209-928-9322
Friday, November 13 • Lodi, CA - Hutchins Street Square - 209-333-6782
Saturday, November 14 • Santa Rosa, CA - Last Day Saloon - 707-545-5876
Sunday, November 15 • Newcastle, CA - Constable Jacks - 916-663-9385
Tuesday, November 17 • Dunsmuir, CA - Sengthong's Blue Sky Room - 530-235-1046
Thursday, November 19 • Portland, OR - Jimmy Maks - 503-295-6542
Friday, November 20 • Langley, WA - Mukilteo Coffee Roaster - 360-321-5262
Saturday, November 21 • Langley, WA - Mukilteo Coffee Roaster - 360-321-5262
Sunday, November 22 • Seattle, WA - Triple Door - 206-838-4333
Hye LEE! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE CONCERT YESTERDAY EVENING IN LUXEMBURG...
