Lee Ritenour

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Lee Ritenour, (born Lee Mack Ritenour, 11 January 1952, Los Angeles, CA, USA) played his first session when he was 16 with The Mamas & The Papas. Lee (along with Larry Carlton) was a sought-after session guitarist by the mid-70s. He is noted for playing his red Gibson ES-335 and his Gibson L5 guitars. One of his most notable influences is the pioneering jazz guitarists Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass and Barney Kessel.
His list of session work is awesome (some 3,000 sessions), but some of his notable performances were with Herbie Hancock, Steely Dan, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and Pink Floyd. Since the mid-80's Ritenour has been strongly influenced by Brazilian music.
In the early 90's, Ritenour teamed up with Bob James, Harvey Mason and bass player Nathan East under the name of Fourplay.
The first Fourplay album in 1991 spent an unprecedented 33 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's contemporary jazz chart.
In 1993, Ritenour topped the Billboard jazz chart again with his accomplished tribute to Wes Montgomery, on his album “Wes Bound”, and followed it in 1995 with an excellent joint album with Larry Carlton.
Ritenour has received 17 Grammy nominations, earned several gold albums.

Artist official website: www.leeritenour.com

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