Two Dave Grusin

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

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

As he proved in his production of David Benoit's 1989 smash Urban Daydreams, the younger brother of Dave Grusin is a master at texturing various synth textures with the acoustic piano. On his solo debut Grusin once again does a remarkable job of this, mixing up his styles along the way to include bits and pieces of funk, Brazilian and mainstream jazz, along with healthy doses of the obligatory pop jazz formulas. Though the ballads here, such as "Oracle," are likable, Grusin the player is most at home on funky and frisky numbers like the stealthy "Catwalk," which features some tasty acoustic improvisations layered sparingly amidst a contagious synth groove. The best cut is another funkfest, "Graffiti Bird," which features the very punchy solo chops of saxman Eric Marienthal.

Flutist Dave Valentin's 16th album for GRP is one of his best. His regular group (a quartet with pianist Bill O'Connell, bassist Lincoln Goines, and drummer Robbie Ameen) is augmented by two percussionists and an excellent seven-member horn section that consists of the reeds of Dick Oatts, Mario Rivera, and David Sanchez; trombonist Angel "Papo" Vasquez; and three trumpeters, including Charlie Sepulveda. All of the horns get their opportunities to solo and the result is a particularly strong Latin jazz session. Valentin continues to grow as a player and he cuts loose on several of these tracks.

The soundtrack to Mike Nichols' The Graduate remains a key musical document of the late '60s, although truth be told, its impact was much less artistic than commercial (and, for that matter, more negative than positive). With the exception of its centerpiece track, the elegiac and oft-quoted "Mrs. Robinson" – which only appears here as a pair of fragments – the Simon & Garfunkel songs that comprise much of the record (a series of Dave Grusin instrumentals round it out) appeared on the duo's two preceding LPs; Nichols' masterstroke was to transplant those songs into his film, where they not only meshed perfectly with the story's themes of youthful rebellion and alienation (and the inner life of the central character, Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin Braddock) but also heralded a new era in movie music centered around the appropriation of past pop hits, a marketing gimmick that grew exponentially in the years to follow…