Lee Ritenour will release Live at Ronnie Scott’s on October 23, 2026, through The Players Club/Artone Label Group. Recorded during an eight-show March residency at London’s legendary jazz club, the album captures the Grammy-winning guitarist revisiting five decades of music with a young, road-tested band.

The first single is a newly arranged live version of “Is It You?,” Ritenour’s signature vocal hit from the 1981 album Rit. The original recording, featuring lead vocalist Eric Tagg, reached No. 15 on both Billboard’s Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts and No. 27 on the soul chart. Ritenour co-wrote the song with Tagg and Bill Champlin.

More than four decades later, Ritenour has not attempted to reproduce that studio recording note for note. He says the song has “definitely evolved” and acknowledges that it was never particularly easy for a band to perform live.

The new version takes on a gentler, slower groove, with Brazilian musicians Munir Hossn and Tatiana Parra sharing the vocals. Hossn also plays bass in Ritenour’s band.

Ritenour recalls sending the song to Hossn about a year before the recording. The younger musician did not know the early-’80s hit well and had one surprising reservation: although he had sung in Portuguese, French and Spanish, he had never performed a song in English.

Ritenour decided that neither singer needed to disguise their natural phrasing or accents. That decision helped give the familiar song its new personality, and he says he is “very happy” with the result.

A Band Built for the Moment

Along with Hossn and Parra, the musicians joining Ritenour on Live at Ronnie Scott’s are keyboardist Giorgi Mikadze, harmonica virtuoso Grégoire Maret, and drummer Wes Ritenour, Lee’s son.

According to Ritenour, the group’s recent history together was essential to the recording. Rather than assembling solely for the album, the musicians arrived in London after several years of consistent playing. That familiarity allowed the band to reshape well-known material instead of simply reproducing the recorded arrangements.

The residency consisted of eight performances with changing set lists—a suitably expansive approach for an artist whose catalog moves freely among jazz fusion, Brazilian music, pop, funk and straight-ahead jazz.

The resulting album includes staples such as “Captain Fingers,” “A Little Bumpin’,” “L.A. By Bike” and “The Village,” alongside Brazilian favorites including “Cravo e Canela,” “Meu Samba Torto” and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Stone Flower.”

Back at Ronnie’s

Ritenour’s connection with Ronnie Scott’s reaches back to the 1970s, and his album announcement makes clear that the venue was more than a picturesque location for the recording.

“Ronnie Scott’s has always been a special place for me. The history, the room and the audience create an energy unlike anywhere else.”

That energy met a band prepared to take advantage of it.

“This band came into the shows ready to play, and I’m very proud of what we captured together,” Ritenour said.

The club’s musical openness also mirrors Ritenour’s own career.

“Every type of music has been played at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club since 1959,” Ritenour said. “That’s exactly what I love to do too.”

Since opening, Ronnie Scott’s has hosted defining jazz figures including Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis and Nina Simone while also welcoming rock, blues, soul and crossover artists. Ritenour’s own résumé has followed a similarly unrestricted path.

He emerged as an elite Los Angeles session guitarist in the late 1960s and went on to record with artists ranging from Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and B.B. King to Steely Dan, Quincy Jones and Pink Floyd. As a solo artist, he became one of jazz fusion’s most recognizable guitar voices, explored Brazilian music extensively and later co-founded Fourplay with Bob James, Nathan East and Harvey Mason.

On Live at Ronnie Scott’s, all of those musical identities meet in the same room. It’s not a retrospective museum piece, but as living material open to reinterpretation.

Live at Ronnie Scott’s Track List

1. Cravo e Canela
2. L.A. By Bike
3. For the Palms
4. Captain Fingers
5. A Little Bumpin’
6. Meu Samba Torto
7. Lay It Down
8. Is It You?
9. Waltz for Carmen
10. Stone Flower
11. Pearl
12. The Village

Live at Ronnie Scott’s will be available October 23 on CD, vinyl and digital platforms. “Is It You? (Live at Ronnie Scott’s)” is available now as the album’s first single.

More information: View the official album announcement and preorder information.

The post Lee Ritenour Announces Live at Ronnie Scott’s, Revisits “Is It You?” appeared first on ContemporaryJazz.com.

A Destiny with the Strings

Born in Hollywood in 1952, Lee felt a “natural attraction to the strings” as early as age four, when he started plucking rubber bands on broomsticks. By age seven, he says, “I was stuck with it,” and at thirteen, his father introduced him to the music of Wes Montgomery, which “really stuck, right from the beginning”.

A founding father of contemporary jazz guitar, his versatility is rooted in a formal, classical foundation. Ritenour has shared that his early discipline allowed him to “devour” rock and roll and pop while maintaining the surgical precision that became his trademark. As he describes it:

“I was classically trained. I had a lot of jazz studies and devoured rock and roll and pop… I was always attracted to the whole package”.

A Legacy of Versatility and Collaborative Spirit

Ritenour’s career is a remarkable study in musical exploration—whether he’s working as a sought-after session player or leading collaborative projects.

• The Session Ace: He has contributed to nearly 2,000 recordings, working with artists ranging from Pink Floyd and Steely Dan to Quincy Jones and Barbra Streisand.
• A “Solid Group Sound”: As a founding member of Fourplay, Lee relished the band’s unique dynamic, noting that while each member had a distinctive solo style, “something special happened when we merged those together… the whole was definitely greater than the sum of its parts”.
• Music of the Mind and Heart: Lee views his instruments as having distinct voices. He has noted that the acoustic guitar offers a “more lyrical, romantic sound” perfect for Brazilian styles, while the electric guitar is “more cutting” and inspires “intense, rhythm-oriented jazz-rock”.

Evolution and Mentorship (The Modern Era)

Lee continues to find new ways to express his artistry and give back to the musical community:

• Returning to the Source (2024): This past year, Lee reunited with his longtime collaborator Dave Grusin for their newest album, Brasil, a vibrant conversation between American and Brazilian jazz.
• A “First” at 68: In 2020, Lee released Dreamcatcher—his first-ever purely solo guitar album, a deeply personal project written after the loss of his home and vintage guitar collection in the California wildfires.
• Mentoring the Future: Since 2010, his Six String Theory Competition has become a global phenomenon, discovering and mentoring the next generation of musical prodigies from over 170 countries.

The “Wes Bound” Spirit

One of the most significant moments in Lee’s career was his 1993 tribute to his hero, Wes Montgomery. For Lee, making the album Wes Bound was a “labor of love” and a chance to make a formidable acoustic statement. It serves as a reminder that no matter how far he travels into fusion or pop, his heart remains with the pure, melodic jazz that first inspired him as a teen.

Lee Live

In 2017, my son and I saw Captain Fingers in concert at the Folly Theater in Kansas City. In addition to the emotional impact of our first father-son jazz show, it was wonderful hearing what selections he had from such a lasting career. He did a “jazz talk” interview before the performance, which lent an additional personal aspect to the night. After the show, the band (which included Patrice Rushen and Wesley Ritenour) sat and greeted fans.

Happy birthday, Captain Fingers!

The post Happy Birthday, Captain Fingers! Celebrating Lee Ritenour appeared first on ContemporaryJazz.com.

Magic Touch, the debut recording from Stanley Jordan was spending its 11th week at the top of the chart on August 3, 1985. It would dominate the chart for a record 51 weeks. It was one of those rare instrumental recordings that went outside of jazz circles – Magic Touch was certified gold in the U.S., marking over 500,000 sales! It introduced the world to Jordan’s groundbreaking two-handed tapping technique, allowing him to perform melody, chords, and bass lines simultaneously on a single instrument.

The album features inventive takes on jazz standards like “’Round Midnight” and “A Child Is Born,” fresh interpretations of pop songs like “Eleanor Rigby” and “The Lady in My Life,” and Jordan’s own original compositions—all performed with dazzling precision and musicality.

Here are the top 15 recordings from the August 3, 1985 Billboard Top Jazz Chart:

Top Jazz Albums
Week of August 3, 1985

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