"I had this fascination with strings," says Ritenour, 58, who grew up in Los Angeles in the musically wide-open 1960s, listening to jazz, rock, funk, blues, Brazilian and classical music. "I could go from Segovia to Wes Montgomery to Jimi Hendrix in a breath. That kind of permeated my musical adventures for the last 50 years. I've always had a passion for any good guitar playing."
That passion can be heard on Ritenour's remarkable new Concord CD, "6 String Theory," which brings together 20 great guitarists spanning many styles. They include bluesmen B.B. King, Robert Cray, Keb' Mo' and Taj Mahal; rockers Steve Lukather, Neal Schon and Slash; jazzmen John Scofield, George Benson, Mike Stern and Pat Martino; country artist Vince Gill; and a handful of young players Ritenour calls his "YouTube babies."
There's the dazzling Australian fingerpicker Joe Robinson, the monster English guitar shredder Guthrie Govan and a gifted 16-year-old Canadian classical guitarist named Shon Boublil. The last scored a spot on the record and a four-year scholarship to the Berklee College of Music after winning the international Yamaha 6 String Theory Guitar Competition that Ritenour set up on YouTube, drawing postings from guitarists around the world. Ritenour will play some of the music from the new disc Friday through Sunday at Yoshi's in Oakland, where he fronts his prime contemporary jazz quartet. The band features Ritenour's longtime collaborator Dave Grusin, the pianist and film composer with whom the guitarist has recorded a slew of records and soundtracks, including the score to "Three Days of the Condor," the 1986 Grammy-winning album "Harlequin," and two classically oriented CDs featuring the great operatic soprano Renée Fleming.
They'll also play some of Grusin's stuff and older pieces by Ritenour, an accomplished and accessible artist whose 40-plus albums include tributes to the music of Montgomery, Bob Marley and Antonio Carlos Jobim.
Admired for his versatility and virtuosity, Ritenour was a busy studio musician in his early days - he made his first date with the Mamas & the Papas when he was 16 - playing on sessions with everyone from Pink Floyd to Frank Sinatra to Sonny Rollins. He came up at a time when musicians from Miles Davis to John McLaughlin and the Crusaders were fusing elements of rock, jazz and pop. The grooving melodic music he and others created in the 1970s was disparaged by the purists and came to be labeled "smooth jazz," a term Ritenour can't stand.
"Smooth means all the edges have been rolled off," says Ritenour, a splendid improviser who, like Grusin, Joe Sample and other jazz musicians, wanted to speak to a wider audience. "People wanted to feel the groove and the melodic aspects of the music. I couldn't pretend I was Joe Pass or Wes Montgomery. I had to bring what I knew to the party. And I was always a very rhythmic and melodic player."
Ritenour has been involved in many memorable recording projects - including sessions with Quincy Jones and Grusin, playing on Pink Floyd's "The Wall." He considers this new record one of the highlights of his career.
"To be in the room with all these amazing players was an extraordinary experience," Ritenour says on the phone from his Los Angeles home. "This was not a cutting contest, a show-off thing. Everybody has their own voice. It's been 50 years that I've been playing the guitar. It's been such a gift having the guitar in my life this whole time. I wanted to celebrate it.
"I don't think there's another instrument on the planet that has this sort of diversity and has changed with the cultural times. It's an amazing instrument. This record celebrates the great diversity and depth of the guitar."
Dubbed Captain Fingers early on for his dazzling facility, Ritenour still has impressive technique, but he's a more thoughtful player these days.
"I'm a better communicator with the audience," he says. "In the early days, the chops were so in command I could play something flashy that might get the audience's attention, but maybe that wasn't as honest as what I'd play now. I think I'm more honest musically in what I'm trying to say."
Lee Ritenour's quartet: 8 and 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 and 7 p.m. Sun. Yoshi's 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. $26 ($5-$18 for Sun. matinee). (510) 522-3300. www.yoshis.com.
Jesse Hamlin, Special to The Chronicle - sfgate.com
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