Lee Ritenour - 6 String Theory

[Tig]

This is not the typical Lee Ritenour smooth jazz CD, but fans won't be disappointed either. The song styles are varied, but it all tends the work out without being too varied, if you know what I mean. We get rock, blues, acoustic, classical, modern shredding, and a few types of jazz, all with the aid of guitarists George Benson, BB King, Slash, Steve Lukather, John Scofield, Joe Bonamassa, Robert Cray, Neal Schon, Pat Martino, Tal Wilkenfeld, etc.
Vocal contributions by BB King, Robert Cray, Vince Gill, Keb' Mo', Taj Majal, Joe Bonamassa and Jonny Lang help make the album a great addition to your collection, no matter what musical styles you like.

Usually this kind of invite-a-bunch-of-different-musicians album tends to produce only a few worthy songs, but this album is nearly perfect. It never gets too lost.
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/0dafcdcd6ca47b76d6506c59900dfaa4/2985354.jpg zlYuTsWPQi0
:applause

[progrmr]

Awesome! Thanks for the heads up!

[Tig]

About one of my favorite songs on the album, "L.P. (For Les Paul)".
Gibson sent an LP that Ritenour custom ordered 6 months before for the album that happened to be delivered the day Les died.
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[progrmr]

So....downloaded this ablum...yea....

I don't really know what to say other than I should have previewed the songs before I bought the whole thing. There's 3, maybe 4 jazz songs on the whole album. The rest sounds very Eric Johnson'ish.

Definitely not what I was looking for. There's some good music but it's definitely more rock/blues than jazz. I really didn't dig the mixing of the two genres either (rock and jazz).

disappointed overall...and I don't care if BB said it was OK - get off my "Why I sing the Blues" !!!

[Radioboy950]

There's a little bit of everything on this album (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/6string/index.html), and Rit can pull it off very well. Luke and Schon seem like a great fit for this.

Be it jazz, smooth jazz or even pop-influenced tunes, he generally puts out pretty good stuff, except for an awkward mid 80s period of poorly-produced, synth-laden, pop cross-over music. The standout from that period was 1981's "RIT", featuring excellent vocals by Eric Tagg. Tracks like "Mr. Briefcase", "Good Question" and "On the Slow Glide" were great.

I'll delve into the new one a little further.