For almost 60 years, Grammy-winning LA guitarist Lee Ritenour has chased his muse through a kaleidoscope of genres, some say he’s conjured alchemy alongside the scene’s greatest players, shed his creative skin whenever it got too comfortable, and walked the high wire each night as the crowd held its breath. So when it came to catching the sparks on his latest live album, the 74-year-old naturally turned to the fabled London club that shares his rebel ethos.
Live At Ronnie Scott’s will be released on 23rd October via The Players Club/Artone Music Group, and will be available on LP, CD and digitally. As a taster of what’s to come, ‘Is It You’ is out now as the first single released from it.
“This one has definitely evolved,” Ritenour said of the song. “There’s some videos out there of people recreating the ’80s version, and they do it very well. But I’ve taken a different approach with the tune, because it was such a big hit, but it was never an easy tune to play live, it was always challenging for everybody. So when you hear this version from this band, it completely has its own flavour. The reason being that the two singers on it are both Brazilians, Munir Hossn, the bass player, and Tatiana Parra, the female singer.
“And this is a funny story,” he continued. “Because I decided I wanted to start doing ‘Is It You’ again, and I had a feeling Munir could handle it. So I sent him the song a year ago, and he wasn’t so familiar with it, because he’s too young for that period. But he called me back and said, ‘Yeah, Lee, that’s a great song, I think I can do it. There’s only one problem: I’ve never sung a song in English.’ He’s sung songs in French, Portuguese, Spanish… So I laughed and said, ‘Well, let’s give it a try.’ So what’s nice about this version is that I don’t try to force the two singers to Americanise, if you will, the vocal performance. They’re definitely both singing with accents, and we have a softer, slow-groove approach to the song that lends itself to Munir and Tatiana. So I’m very happy with the way it turned out.”
Performing a total of eight shows at the iconic Soho club in March 2026, with a fresh setlist each time, was the only way this prolific artist could hope to represent every side of his career. Across his 50-strong back catalogue, Ritenour has shapeshifted from ’70s fusion hotshot to ’80s chart-crossover star, from the honourary ambassador for Brazilian jazz to one quarter of ’90s supergroup Fourplay, and beyond.
Every song feels fresh and alive, thanks to the bandleader’s bold arrangements and the rip-it-up energy of a young band featuring Giorgi Mikadze (keyboards), Munir Hossn (vocals/bass), Grégoire Maret (harmonica), Tatiana Parra (vocals) and Ritenour‘s son, Wes, driving the shows from his drum stool.
“I’ve had the chance to play every kind of music with every kind of artist,” reflected Ritenour, “and that’s the way Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club is set up too. Obviously, since 1959, it’s seen the history of jazz, from Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis and Nina Simone, to Jeff Beck and Jamie Cullum. But also rock, soul, blues, you name it, it’s all been through there.”
Born in Los Angeles in 1952, he was playing guitar by eight, “serious” by 12, and soaking up everything that Sixties flashpoint had to offer. “My dad used to take me to hear Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass and Jim Hall,” he reflects. “But there were also the rock guys coming through LA back then, like Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.”
Ritenour grew up fast, and from the late ’60s he was a first-call sessioner for giants like Frank Sinatra, Pink Floyd, B.B. King and Tony Bennett. “I’d get called for Steely Dan, or Quincy Jones would ask me to come by the studio at midnight,” he says of those gun-for-hire years. “Somebody once added up that I did 3,000 recordings for artists, movies and TV shows. It was incredible reaching the top tier as a studio musician. But I always had a desire to write my own songs and records, to be an artist.”
In ’76 and ’77, Ritenour established his own solo career. For the next four decades, he would shift gears and outrun categorisation at every turn, from his pop crossover on 1981’s Rit, to winning a Grammy in 1985 for ‘Early A.M. Attitude’, and not forgetting Fourplay‘s audacious jousts with fellow crème-de-la-crème musos Bob James (keyboards), Nathan East (bass) and Harvey Mason (drums). Perhaps his eclectic vision was best summed up by 2010’s hugely ambitious and star-studded 6 String Theory album.
Live At Ronnie Scott’s is an artist performing with no safety net. As Ritenour reflects, the atmosphere during that March residency was electric and just a little dangerous, with London’s most discerning jazz fiends expecting fireworks from one of the US scene’s most fabled players.
“I have a history at Ronnie’s, going back to the ’70s. It’s such an iconic room, and the audience is so sophisticated. If you don’t deliver, it’s probably not good. But this band has been playing together consistently for the last few years, so we came into Ronnie’s already very glued, and the audience felt it from the very first song.”
Those songs captured for the new live recording are ‘Cravo E Canela’, ‘L.A. By Bike’, ‘For The Palms’, ‘Captain Fingers’, ‘A Little Bumpin”, ‘Meu Samba Torto’, ‘Lay It Down’, ‘Is It You?’, ‘Waltz for Carmen’, ‘Stone Flower’, ‘Pearl’ and ‘The Village’.
