anthologysd.com

By George Varga | signonsandiego.com

Lee Ritenour is not the most recorded guitarist in the country, but he comes close. Known by fans as both Rit ?and “Captain Fingers,” he is perhaps most noted for his sleek pop-jazz outings, both as a veteran solo artist and for his tenure as the original guitarist in Fourplay, the all-star quartet cofounded by San Diego-bred bass great Nathan East.

But Ritenour, who performs with his band tonight at downtown’s all-ages Anthology, is even more notable as one of the most prolific and versatile guitarists of the past 40 years. After early recording dates with artists as varied as Carly Simon , The Four Tops, Peggy Lee and George Duke, he swiftly became one of the most in-demand studio guitarists in Los Angeles and, by extension, the world. From Aretha Franklin, Rennée Fleming and Dizzy Gillespie to B.B. King , Simon & Garfunkel and arch-rock ?pioneers Sparks, Ritenour has played on more records by more artists than all but a handful of other guitarists. One would expect no less from this six-string ace, who was 16 when he did his first studio date with The Mamas & The Papas and 18 when he backed Tony Bennett and Lena Horne.

By my mathematically impaired count, Ritenour, 58, has done more than 2,500 recording dates. His list of credits includes Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” (that’s him on “Run Like Hell”), Steely Dan’s “Aja,” Bobby “Blue” Bland’s ?“Reflections in Blue,” Barbra ?Streisand’s “Guilty,” The Pointer Sisters’ “So Excited,” Al Jarreau’s “All Fly Home,” The Brothers Johnson’s “Look Out for No. 1,” George Benson’s “Give Me the Night,” the “Saturday Night Fever” film soundtrack and, well, you get the idea.

Given such eclecticism, it’s no surprise Ritenour’s new album, the aptly titled “6 ?String Theory,” showcases 20 other guitar greats, among them King, Benson, Pat Martino, John Scofield, Slash , ?Vince Gill , Robert Cray, Neal Schon ?and Steve Lukather. ?Also featured are artists as varied as Taj Mahal, Joey DeFrancesco and two precocious guitar phenoms, Shon Boublil, ?16, and YouTube sensation Joe Robinson, 18.

Just how Ritenour will be able to pull off these new songs live at Anthology — where he’ll be accompanied by keyboardist Jesse Milliner, ?bassist Melvin Davis and ex-Yellowjackets’ drummer Will Kennedy — is anybody’s guess. But if anyone can figure out how to cover so many multiple guitar parts and styles live, by himself, there are few more qualified candidates.

–

Via signonsandiego.com

By Ronaldo Oregano | jazzpolice.comThe John Scofield quartet with Mulgrew Miller on piano, Ben Street on bass, and Kendrick Scott on drums will be hitting the west coast from north to south in a week. Scofield is taking a break from his Piety Street tour to hit the west coast with this fine jazz quartet. They will perform on March 9th and 10th at Jazz Alley in Seattle. Then on Tuesday, March 11th through Sunday, March 14th they are at Yoshi’s in Oakland. For a siingle night each they play the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz on March 15th and at Anthology in San Diego on Tuesday, March 16th.

John Scofield is considered one of the “big three” of current jazz guitarists — along with Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell. His influence began in the late 70’s and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B.

Born in Ohio and raised in suburban Connecticut, Scofield took up the guitar at age 11, inspired by both rock and blues players. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. After a debut recording with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, Scofield was a member of the Billy Cobham-George Duke band for two years. In 1977 he recorded with Charles Mingus, and joined the Gary Burton quartet. He began his international career as a bandleader and recording artist in 1978. From 1982-1985, Scofield toured and recorded with Miles Davis. His Davis stint placed him firmly in the foreground of jazz consciousness as a player and composer.

Since that time Scofield has prominently led his own groups in the international Jazz scene, recorded over 30 albums as a leader (many already classics) including collaborations with contemporary favorites like Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, Eddie Harris, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Bill Frisell, Brad Mehldau, Mavis Staples, Government Mule, Jack DeJohnette, Joe Lovano and Phil Lesh. He’s played and recorded with Tony Williams, Jim Hall, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Dave Holland, Terumasa Hino among many jazz legends. Throughout his career Scofield has punctuated his traditional jazz offerings with funk-oriented electric music. All along, the guitarist has kept an open musical mind.

Touring the world approximately 200 days per year with his own groups, Scofield is an Adjunct Professor of Music at New York University, a husband and father of two.

Renowned jazz pianist Mulgrew Miller has recorded with almost every known Jazz artist in the scene, from Joe Lovano to Nicholas Payton. In fact, he remains one of the most recorded pianists in the scene today (second only to Kenny Barron), with over 400 recording sessions to his credit. Miller will appear with his trio at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago on Wednesday, July 15th through Sunday, July 19th.

Mulgrew Miller professional career started, aged twenty, with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, led by the late Mercer Ellington. During his formative years as a sideman, Mulgrew also worked with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Woody Shaw’s Quintet and Betty Carter’s group. He was also one of the founding members of Tony Williams’ Quintet.

In 1995 Mulgrew toured Europe and the US sharing the stage with fellow pianist Kenny Barron. Mulgrew has also been noticed in various all star groups, such as The New York Jazz Giants, One Hundred Golden Fingers or the early editions of Jazz at the Philharmonic Revisited. In 1999 Mulgrew started working with virtuoso bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. Together they recorded Duets, a wonderful CD for Bang & Olufsen featuring the music of Duke Ellington and Jimmy Blanton.

Mulgrew Miller’s latest releases on MaxJazz include: The Sequel (2003), featuring his sextet Wingspan; Live at Yoshi’s volume 1 and 2 (2004 & 2005), with Derrick Hodge and Karriem Riggins; and Live at Kennedy Center volumes 1 and 2 (2006 & 2007), featuring Derrick Hodge and Rodney Green.

On May 20, 2006, Miller was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Performing Arts at Lafayette College’s 171st Commencement Exercises. As of 2006 he is the Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University.

A highly original composer, Mulgrew has moved, as an interpreter, from such influences as McCoy Tyner, Oscar Peterson and Wynton Kelly to become very recognizably his own man, powerful, lyrical, and imaginative.

John Scofield quartet tour schedule

March 9 - 10 Seattle, WA Jazz Alley
March 11 - 14 Oakland, CA Yoshi’s
March 15 Santa Cruz, CA Kuumbwa
March 16 San Diego, CA Anthology

–

Via jazzpolice.com

Virtuoso guitarist hitting the road with World Sinfonia

Virtuoso guitarist Al Di Meola will be performing at Anthology, February 3 as part of his national tour and new album release with his new project, Al Di Meola and World Sinfonia. Joining a handpicked group of master musicians for both the tour and album, Di Meola makes a surprising turn into the romantic, producing a collection of moving tango-flavored melodies. Their work is on display on ‘La Melodia Live In Milano,’ available in America for the first time and releases on January 8, 2009, just days before the tour starts. The album features two songs by tango master Astor Piazzolla, for whom Di Meola admits he has been “carrying a torch” his entire career, as well as one each from Ennio Morricone and Andrea Parodi, and four by Di Meola himself.

This shift in tone is perfectly natural for Di Meola. “Although the tango developed in Argentina, it was born in the region of Italy where my parents are from, Napoli,” he explains. “This music connects to my roots. As long as I’m playing music, it will be part of my repertoire.” No wonder, then, that World Sinfonia’s music sounds so effortless: it’s in his blood.

As a member of groundbreaking jazz-fusion group Return to Forever starting in the 1970s, and in his solo work since, Di Meola earned a reputation for being technically brilliant with unbelievable chops. For the past several years, however, he has been spent as much time composing for chamber orchestras in Europe as creating blazing guitar solos. With World Sinfonia, Di Meola moves his audience with the range of emotions in his music, rather than simply blowing them away with his technique.

Website: www.AlDiMeola.com

Show details:

Al DiMeola will perform on Feb. 3 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $39 and are available at the Anthology Box Office, by calling 619.595.0300 and at www.AnthologySD.com.

Anthology is located at 1337 India Street (between A and Ash Streets).

“The blues is a leaving, breathing art form,” explains Robben Ford, who has been playing them for most of his adult life. “They have always been sociopolitical.”

The veteran musician, who has received four Grammy nominations, a nod by Musician magazine as one of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century” and has played with the likes of Joni Mitchell, George Harrison, Miles Davis, Greg Allman, Phil Lesh and Larry Carlton, puts that observation into practice on his third and latest Concord Music Group album, Truth.

While recognized by his peers and critics as a superlative instrumentalist and technician, Ford insists writing songs has kept his career on an upward trajectory. Truth features superb playing, but more importantly, it tells a story.

“On this album, I am speaking out about the things I believe in, using the language of the blues, but updating it in a modern, evolutionary context,” he explains, with new songs like the first single, “Lateral Climb,” and “Peace on My Mind,” dealing with such issues as the faltering economy and the war in Iraq with a fresh, personal approach.

Ford employs an all-star cast which includes guest vocalists Susan Tedeschi (on Paul Simon’s “One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor”) and Siedah Garrett (backgrounds on “You’re Gonna Need a Friend” and “River of Soul”), keyboardist Larry Goldings, bassist Chris Chaney, drummer Gary Novak along with keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and drummer/bassist Charley Drayton, both from Keith Richards’ Expensive Winos. The album also includes songwriting collaborations with Keb Mo (“Riley B. King”), Nashville tunesmiths Gary Nicholson (“How Deep in the Blues [Do You Want to Go]”) and Danny Flowers (“River of Soul”), his wife Anne Kerry Ford (“You’re Gonna Need a Friend”) and his nephew Gabriel Ford (“Too Much”).

“The songs I wrote for this record were naturally inspired by the times,” says Ford. “I once covered one of Willie Dixon’s songs, ‘It Don’t Make Sense, You Can’t Make Peace,’ which he wrote at the time of the Vietnam War. But it’s obviously applicable today.”

“Lateral Climb” is typical of Ford’s approach, a personal song set against a churning blues backdrop; it deals with such modern-day problems as credit card debt and the treadmill of the 9-to-5 rat race.

“That’s about something from my own life,” he laughs. “I make a lot more money then I used to, and I got rid of all my credit cards, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. That’s the blues today.”

The ominous, post-9/11 “Peace on My Mind” is as up-to-date as today’s headlines, with lines like “Who can make sense/Of problems in a distant land” and “When fire meets fire/You burn away the common ground,” Ford creates his own version of a protest song for the times.

“It’s an anti-war song without being too preachy,” Ford explains. “If you’re pointing a finger, no one wants to hear it. It’s a portrait rather than a sermon. The truths I describe are self-evident.”

Ford also tries to subvert and bring new meaning to blues clichés like the evil woman who bedevils her victim in songs like “You’re Gonna Need a Friend” (ironically, co-written with his wife, singer Anne Kerry Ford and “There’ll Never Be Another You,” which expresses that uneasiness with a 7/4 tempo that segues into 6/4 for the guitar solo over lyrics like “Will she poison my coffee/Sweeten my tea?”

“There’s a lot of repetition in the blues, so just a subtle shift can make all the difference,” he says. “That small change takes you to a different place.”

Ford pays tribute to one of his primary influences in “Riley B. King,” an homage to B.B., whom he first saw at the old Fillmore in San Francisco opening for another of his favorite guitarists, Mike Bloomfield’s Electric Flag. He wrote the song in Sedona, AZ, responding to the city’s spiritual energy, then gave it to Keb Mo, who recorded a version of it with Ford and Robert Cray for his album, and made some suggestions to help freshen the chorus.

Two covers help define Ford’s love of southern R&B. His faithful version of Otis Redding’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” a B-side to an early single which spotlights the punchy horn section of sax player Dave “Woody” Woodford and Dan Fornero on trumpet, while his funky take on Paul Simon’s “One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor,” featuring a duet with Susan Tedeschi, recalls the original’s use of the Muscle Shoals rhythm section.

“I thought I could do a good job with it,” says Ford of the Simon song. “Susan really sings her ass off. Because I didn’t write it, that made it easier for both of us to do our own thing with it.”

Ford maintains the raw, live sound he prefers on the grinding “Too Much,” featuring Larry Goldings’ distinctive Hammond B3 organ, though he also shifts stylistic direction for the deliberate “River of Soul” and “Moonchild Blues,” a song inspired by a line from a Howlin’ Wolf song.

“The blues is where all my songs come from,” Ford admits. “It just feels good to work with a classic musical art form and keep it alive. I feel part of a tradition, as opposed to being out there all alone trying to create songs out of thin air. It’s unfortunate that people would think of the blues as something that’s ancient. The blues is pretty universal, but there’s a boldness to this record, a language I’ve used to make it new.”

“I want my music to be about something,” concludes Ford. “I have come up with new contexts for my playing… that’s what gives it a purpose.”

Ford speaks the Truth… not just with the sound of his guitar, but the vision behind his music.

—

When: Sunday, Jan 18, 8:30 p.m.

Where: Anthology, 1337 India St., Little Italy

Tickets: $32. buy tickets