Lee Ritenour & Dave Grusin - Amparo

Presenter

Stephen Hall

Published

Friday 17th October

Decca Records

Even if you don’t know their names, you will have certainly have heard their music!

Grusin is an Oscar winner for his score for The Milagro Beanfield War, he has written over sixty movie scores, including The Champ, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Firm, Havana, Heaven Can Wait, On Golden Pond, The Graduate, For the Boys, Selena, Mulholland Falls.

Ritenour has recorded over forty albums as a solo artist, including: a tribute to Wes Montgomery titled Wes Bound, A Twist of Jobim, a tribute to Brazilian songwriter Antonio Carlos [“Tom”] Jobim, A Twist of Marley paid tribute to the Jamaican reggae legend and later still A Twist of Motown. Ritenour is also a founding member of the groundbreaking soul/jazz/funk fusion band Fourplay.

Pianist/composer Dave Grusin and guitarist/producer Lee Ritenour are both well known and lauded critically and commercially beyond the jazz world; this is the second album that they have collaborated on, the first has sold over 100,000 copies.

The album is a compelling mix that includes new arrangements written by Grusin of many well regarded classical selections, including not just Faure’s Pavane, Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, Albinoni’s G minor Adagio, and a duet from Handel’s opera Rinaldo. There’s also some Latin-inspired works penned by Dave Grusin (Three Latin American Dances), a Ritenour original composition newly arranged by Ritenour and Grusin (Echos), as well as the track which inspired the album’s title: Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Olha Maria (Amparo).

There is very little original classical music scored for piano and guitar, so when an album likes this comes along we need to take notice. It is also of note that it has contributions by James Taylor, opera superstar Renee Fleming, classical violinist Joshua Bell, and jazz trumpeter Chris Botti.