Lee Ritenour & Dave Grusin
Biography Lee Ritenour & Dave Grusin
Lee Ritenour
Starting at the age of 16, Lee played his first session with The Mama's and the Papa's. Two years later he was backing Tony Bennett and Lena Horne at L.A.'s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Known as "Captain Fingers," Ritenour became a sought-after session player in the mid-70's. Starting in 1976, at the age of 24, he began his own solo career which now includes over 30 albums and collaborations. Although heavily influenced in his early days by the relaxed styles of Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass and Barney Kessel, he now has his own distinctive sound and fluid style. His list of session work is awesome (some 3,000 sessions), but some of his notable performances were with Herbie Hancock, Steely Dan, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and Pink Floyd. Since the mid-80's Ritenour has been strongly influenced by Brazilian music.
Along the way, Ritenour has received 17 Grammy nominations, earned several gold albums, numerous #1 spots in guitar polls and the prestigious "Alumnus of the Year" award from USC. In 1981, he scored the pop15 hit "Is It You," featuring vocalist Eric Tagg, which has also become a smooth jazz radio classic. He joined GRP Records in 1985 after recording for Electra the previous 7 years. At that time, he recorded the magnificent Harlequin album with GRP co-owner Dave Grusin. It was nominated for four Grammys and won one that year.
In the early 90's, Ritenour teamed up with Bob James, Harvey Mason and bass player Nathan East under the name of Fourplay, who has released a number of soul/jazz/funk fusion albums for Warner Brothers Records. Lee was a founding member of the original band and participated in the first three releases which remain their biggest hits to date. The first Fourplay album in 1991 spent an unprecedented 33 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's contemporary jazz chart.
In 1993, Ritenour topped the Billboard jazz chart with his accomplished tribute to Wes Montgomery on his album Wes Bound, and followed it in 1995 with an excellent joint album with Larry Carlton. In 1997, Ritenour was a founding partner of i.e. Music at Polygram Records. The first release on i.e. Music was a Twist of Jobim paying tribute to the great Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. The single "Water to Drink" from this album was a #1 Radio N Records NAC airplay single in 1997. In 2000, he and Dave Grusin returned to their classical roots with Two Worlds, which remained on Billboard's classical charts for 51 weeks. In 2001 he released the second of the Twist of trilogy, with a tribute to Bob Marley, placing reggae classics in a contemporary setting. The first single "Get Up, Stand Up," was the #1 Radio N Records NAC airplay single of 2001. In 2002, Ritenour released Rit's House, a jazzier, funk album with many new original compositions of Ritenour's. The final of the Twist of trilogy was the 2003 release A Twist of Motown.
Dave Grusin
Robert David Grusin (b. 1934) is an American composer, arranger, producer, and pianist. He has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy Award and ten Grammy Awards.
Grusin was born in Littleton, Colorado, to Henri and Rosabelle (née de Poyster) Grusin. His mother was a pianist and his father was a violinist from Riga, Latvia. He studied music at the University of Colorado at Boulder and was awarded his degree in 1956. His teachers included Cecil Effinger and Wayne Scott, pianist, arranger and professor of jazz.
Grusin produced his first single in 1962, Subways Are for Sleeping, and his first film score, for Divorce American Style, in 1967. Other scores followed, including The Graduate (1967), Winning (1969), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), The Midnight Man (1974), and Three Days of the Condor (1975).
In 1978, he founded GRP Records with his business partner, Larry Rosen, and began to produce some of the first commercial digital recordings. He was the composer for On Golden Pond (1981), Tootsie (1982), and The Goonies (1985). In 1988, he won the Oscar for best original score, for The Milagro Beanfield War. He composed the musical signatures for the 1984 TriStar Pictures logo and the 1993 Columbia Pictures Television logo. Grusin has a filmography of about 100 titles.
From 2000-11, Grusin concentrated on composing classical and jazz compositions, touring and recording with collaborators, including jazz singer and lyricist Lorraine Feather and guitarist Lee Ritenour. Their album Harlequin won a Grammy Award in 1985. Their classical crossover albums, Two Worlds and Amparo, were nominated for Grammys.
Grusin received honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music in 1988 and University of Colorado, College of Music in 1989.
