Eric Tagg

A classic west coast album by the incredibly talented songwriter Eric Tagg. The album consists of L.A's finest musicians & is packed with beautifully crafted & sentimental songs. Eric's talent lies in writing songs with a sort of humorous twist to them. A little hard to explain, one should just take a close listen.Also, the whole album is produced by Lee Ritenour & it sounds like a follow up to his own "Rit" album. If you liked Rit then don't miss this offering. It's much better…

Lee Ritenour goes techno/pop/rock on an album originally released on the pop Elektra label – and as such is not recommended to jazz fans with a low tolerance for the stuff. Here Captain Fingers extends his reach to play keyboards and programmed electronic drums on a few tracks, along with very competent rock guitar .

Portrait is predominantly a series of encounters between Ritenour and several guest interlopers, presumably to provide a well-rounded stylistic composite. The more heartening result is the acceleration of Ritenour's growth into a tastier, more musical guitarist, whether in the lead or sharing the spotlight.

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.

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.

John Lee and Gerry Brown's Blue Note debut pairs the duo with producer Skip Drinkwater, who strips their fusion approach to its bare essentials to create a moody, deeply funky sound that smolders with intensity. Bolstered by session aces spanning from Motown studio great Wah Wah Watson to Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine, Mango Sunrise burns as slow and steady as a stick of dynamite – while Drinkwater's production is undeniably slick, it also eliminates the superfluous sounds and technical wankery that undermine so much of Lee and Brown's subsequent output.