Lee Ritenour Captain Fingers

Guitarist Lee Ritenour had just switched from Epic to Elektra when he cut Captain's Journey in 1978. It was a followup to the successful crossover work Captain Fingers and used a similar strategy: tight, hook-laden arrangements, polished production, and minimal solo space. What individual things it has are dominated by Ritenour, a supremely talented guitarist who doesn't display that much of it with these arrangements.

This album features a combination of fine guitar work, vocals and production values. Mr. Briefcase is a finely crafted piece of jazz-pop with lyrics that matter. There are many great songs on this record…

Overtime is really two CDs in one. On the instrumentals, particularly "Bass City" and "Blue in Green," guitarist Lee Ritenour sounds a lot like Wes Montgomery and he leads his group (which features either Ernie Watts or Eric Marienthal on tenor) through some relatively straight-ahead numbers filled with soulful and creative playing. However the five vocals numbers are much more in the R&B/smooth vein and are largely throwaways despite the occasional presence of Ivan Lins. Clearly Ritenour was going for variety on this project but will probably only satisfy his greatest fans. The jazz listeners will be turned off by the vocals and the pop/smooth fans will probably only tolerate some of the more adventurous originals. Ritenour sounds fine in both settings but probably should have recorded twice as much music and split this CD into two.

This guitar compilation provides you with a knock-out collection of full albums by guitar icons such as Lee Ritenour (Captain Fingers), George Benson, Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, John Pizzarelli, G3 and many more. If you’re lucky, you can find this box set for less than € 50,00, so you get a lot of awesome music at a cheap price! The genres range from Jazz, Blues and Rock to Fusion. Great work by great guitarists.