Friday, October 17, 2025
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Show 8:45pm | Doors 8:15pm
$69.65 to $85.65
Craft cocktails and small plates begin at 8:15pm.
Middle C Jazz has General Admission seating available on a first-come basis. We also offer preferred seating for our Baby Grand members.
For information regarding our Baby Grand Membership click here.
5 DECADES OF JAZZ, FUSION, BRAZILIAN MUSIC, AND POP
LEE RITENOUR
For Lee Ritenour, there aren’t many “firsts” left to achieve. During his dazzling five-decade career, the fabled LA guitarist has taken his music to the outer limits, exploring every genre and occupying every position in the rock ‘n’ roll firmament.
Ritenour’s accolades include: 45 albums, a Grammy Award win plus 16 Grammy nominations, Alumnus of the Year at USC, Los Angeles’ Jazz Society Honoree (2019), plus thousands of sessions with legends such as Frank Sinatra, Pink Floyd, B.B. King, and Tony Bennett, among others.
Ritenour picked up the guitar at age 8 and spent most of his young teens on a bar stool at a jazz club, soaking in every genre and the guitar legends driving the music. With that widespread musicality, he forged a career as one of LA’s busiest session men.
Launching his solo career in the late ’70s, his interests naturally evolved into the budding jazz fusion era, where he won a Grammy. He continued to cross over, next into the ’80s pop charts, then as an honorary exponent of Brazilian jazz, and as the fingers behind the ’90s supergroup, Fourplay.
His 2010 album was a chance to bring together that variety of music and the musicians he had worked with along the way. Then he turned the page again in 2020 with the album Dreamcatcher, a melodic and beautifully tingling guitar instrumental reflecting a personal journey through several life challenges.
Finally, his latest 2024 release, Brasil, is a return to longtime collaborator Dave Grusin. Recorded in Sao Paulo with a group of the finest legends and young guns in the Brazilian jazz scene, Brasil, with its laid-back tropical grooves and joyous interplay, is exquisitely crafted out of a 50-year conversation between two masters.
