Wow, that's a lot of hair on the CD cover. Well, it was the late '70s, after all. In the '70s and '80s, Ritenour was a highly sought after session guitarist that released the occasional solo LP. Extremely technically adept, his nickname is Captain Fingers. For this release, Rit puts down his electric guitar and put together an acoustic set that is derivative of Brazilian music with brief lapses into pseudo-Carribean music. Ritenour's guitar work is beautiful, but he is playing it very safe here and the music can lapse into elevator music at times.
Reviews/ratings:
- Musician: "you don't have to go to Brazil to record such sanitized and landless music. You could do it in a mall."
- The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★
- The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★
Album chart peaks:
- US Billboard 200: #163
- Billboard Jazz: #11
- CashBox: #178
- CashBox Jazz: #8
- Radio & Records Jazz Radio National Airplay: #5
Tracks: While some of the 7 tracks sound more Brazilian than others, they're all somewhat enjoyable. Maybe "comfortable" is a better word to describe them. The more successful tracks are San Juan Sunset, It Happens Everyday, and Simplicidad. High on the cheesy scale: Rio Funk. With only 7 tracks and a 38 minute running time, you can tell this was originally a vinyl release.
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: This album was originally recorded by JVC for the Japanese market (1979), first released in the U.S. on the Elektra/Musician label (1982), and finally on GRP (1985). In the mid '80s, I dubbed a cassette of this release from a friend's album. He had the 1982 US release on vinyl, which had the understated cover pictured below. The cover that GRP used has just never seemed right to me. If memory serves, the track sequence was different as well as the cover. Nice work, GRP.
Believe it or not, I subjected my wife to this sort of music while we dated and she stayed with me anyway.
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