Lee Ritenour - ...and on guitar (1976)

Lee Mack Ritenour was born on 11 January 1952, in Los Angeles, and being musically precocious, he began playing the guitar when he was five years old. At eight his interest in the instrument went beyond the ordinary, and with support from his parents, they found him new and better instructors, so that by the age of 12 he was under the tutelage of Duke Miller, future head of the guitar department at the University of Southern California, and purported at the time to be the finest guitar teacher in Los Angeles. As an adolescent he played in his first group the Esquires, which was the beginning of his time in a number of teenage bands, and when he was just 15 years old John Phillips, leader of The Mamas and the Papas, heard one of his bands and then hired him to play in a studio session. Although he was talented enough at the age of 18 to become a session guitarist, he made the choice to continue his education, and enrolled into the University of Southern California, where he studied classical guitar with another musician first in his field, Christopher Parkening. He remained at the university for two and a half years, until he got the opportunity to play with Brazilian pop-jazz musician Sergio Mendes, and touring with Mendes was Ritenour’s introduction to Latin music, also developing a love of jazz from listening to guitarist Wes Montgomery. By the age of 17 he'd worked with Lena Horne and Tony Bennett, and had been noticed by jazz pianist and producer Dave Grusin. Highly recommended on the studio circuit by Grusin and others, Ritenour was working 15 to 20 sessions a week in a lucrative business during the early seventies. When he started working the studio dates, he was often asked to sound like all the other guitar players, but he wanted to go beyond that, and established an identity which was instantly recognisable. Because of the speed of his playing he was nick-named Captain Fingers, later the title of one of his albums, and so was the first choice for any jazz-fusion musician who needed some intricate guitar-work on their tracks, resulting in him featuring on a wide variety of jazz-fusion recording in the early 70's. At the same time he was also playing on records by pop and rock artists, showing his versatility in a wide variety of genres, including soul with Aretha Franklin, The Impressions, and The Four Tops, and straight-forward pop/rock with Cyndi Greco, Carly Simon and Anne Murray. For this collection I've just picked tracks from the couple of years before the release of his debut solo album 'First Course' in 1976, and I've split them between his jazz-fusion recordings and his pop/rock sessions, with the jazz-fusion part running to two volumes because of the length of some of the tracks.  

Track listing

Disc One: Some Jazz
01 Soulution (from 'Black Miracle' by Joe Henderson 1975) 
02 Haply-Happy (from 'Saudade' by Moacir Santos 1974)
03 Back At The Chicken Shack (from 'Brass Fever' by Brass Fever 1975) 
04 Razzia (from 'Before The Dawn' by Patrice Rushen 1975)
05 Chariot (from 'I Love The Blues, She Heard My Cry' by George Duke 1975)
06 Wild Rice (from 'Marching In The Streets' by Harvey Mason 1975) 
07 Happiness Is Loving You (from 'Mind Transplant' by Alphonse Mouzon 1975)
08 Fight For Freedom (from 'Skull Session' by Oliver Nelson 1975)

Disc Two: Some More Jazz
01 Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow (from 'Discovered Again!' by Dave Grusin 1976)
02 Sugar Loaf Sunrise (from 'Metamorphosis' by Wade Marcus 1976)
03 On The Case (from 'Moonshadows' by Alphonso Johnson 1976) 
04 Kickin' Back (from 'People Moving' by Azar Lawrence 1976) 
05 Sweet Summer Breeze (from 'Warm And Sonny' by Sonny Criss 1976)
06 Simbora (from 'Agora' by Paulinho Da Costa 1976)
07 Island Lady (from 'The Way I Feel' by Sonny Rollins 1976)
    
Disc Three: Some Songs
01 You (from 'Farewell Fairbanks' by Randy Edelman 1975)
02 Steamboat (from 'Smilin' Memories' by Eric Tagg 1975) 
03 Waterfall (from 'Playing Possum' by Carly Simon 1975)
04 Wish That Love Was Magic (from 'Harmony Grits' by Street Corner Symphony 1975)
05 Player In The Band (from 'Together' by Anne Murray 1975)
06 Baby Blue (from 'Get Closer' by Seals & Crofts 1976)
07 100 Different Ways (b-side of 'Nobody Likes Lovin' More Than I Do' by Lisa Hartman 1976)
08 Fantasy Woman (from 'Lovelock' by Gene Page 1976)
09 Imaginary Girl (from 'Diggin' It' by Dunn And Rubini 1976)
10 Hurly-Burly (from 'Angelo' by Angelo 1976)
11 Raining In The City (from 'I'm Easy' by Keith Carradine 1976)
12 The Dancer (from 'Nadia's Theme' by Barry De Vorzon 1976)
13 Where The Hot Wind Blows (from 'Pictures & Rhymes' by Jim Weatherly 1976)

For MAC users

Press command+shift+period (to show hidden files) and a grayed out folder '...and on guitar" will appear and the mp3s will be inside. Either drag those to another folder OR rename the folder without any periods at the beginning. Press command+shift+period to once again hide the hidden files.

Frank Zappa - ...and on guitar (1978)

Frank Vincent Zappa was born on 21 December 21 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland, and was often sick as a child, suffering from asthma, earaches and sinus problems. A doctor treated his sinusitis by inserting a pellet of radium into each of his nostrils, as at the time little was known about the potential dangers of even small amounts of therapeutic radiation, and that might explain why nasal imagery and references appear in his music and lyrics, as well as in the collage album covers created by his long-time collaborator Cal Schenkel. Zappa joined his first band at Mission Bay High School in San Diego as the drummer, and he was interested in sounds for their own sake, particularly the sounds of drums and other percussion instruments. At Antelope Valley High School, Zappa met Don Glen Vliet (who later changed his name to Don Van Vliet and adopted the stage name Captain Beefheart), and he played drums in local band the Blackouts, but he also started to develop an interest in the guitar, and in 1957 he was given his first instrument. Zappa's interest in composing and arranging flourished in his last high-school years, and by his final year he was writing, arranging and conducting avant-garde performance pieces for the school orchestra, and after he left high school he attempted to earn a living as a musician and composer. During the early 1960's, Zappa wrote and produced songs for other local artists, and in 1964 he moved into the Pal studio and began routinely working 12 hours or more per day recording and experimenting with overdubbing and audio tape manipulation. Aided by his income from film composing, Zappa took over the studio from Paul Buff, and renamed it Studio Z, although it was rarely booked for recordings by other musicians, and following a brief prison sentence for recording alleged pornographic mateiral there, he could no longer afford to pay the rent on the studio and was evicted, with the building being torm down in 1966. That was also the year that Zappa formed The Mothers, and recorded the classic 'Freak Out' album, which was to put him on the path to being one of the most influential musicians in the world. In July of that year he was asked to produce some tracks for The Animals, one of which was his own composition 'All Night Long'. The following year he played guitar on both sides of a 7" single by Tommy Flanders, and on the A-side of Barry Goldberg's 'Carry On' single. 
During the late 1960's, Zappa continued to develop the business sides of his career, and he and Herb Cohen formed the Bizarre Records and Straight Records labels, distributed by Warner Bros. Records, releasing albums by Alice Cooper, The Persuasions, and Wild Man Fischer, on whose record he also played guitar. In 1970 Zappa helped out former band-mate Jeff Simmons by producing and playing on his first proper solo album (following a collaborative film soundtrack with Randy Sterling), and the same year he composed the music for Jean-Luc Ponty's 'King Kong' album, as well as playing on the record, and afterwards asked the violinist to join The Mothers Of Invention as a permanent member. In 1971 he and the Mothers were part of John Lennon's live performance at the Fillmore East in New York City on 6 June 1971, which was taped and released the following year on John Lennon & Yoko Ono's 'Some Time In New York City' album. In 1968 The Mothers Of Invention had released a pastiche of 50's doo-wop music under the title of 'Cruising With Reuben & The Jet's', and four years later a Los Angeles band named themselves after the album, producing two records of their own, the first of which was produced by Zappa, as well on him contributing one song to it, and playing guitar on another. In 1974 he helped out former Mothers' keyboardist George Duke on his own album 'Feel', and in 1976 he managed to reform Grand Funk Railroad, who had just broken up, by telling then that he wanted to produce them, which he did on their 'Good Singin', Good Playin'' album, on which he played guitar on one track. In 1976 Zappa was in Montreal for a concert, and was asked by Robert Charlebois to participate in the recording of a track on his new album. Zappa accepted and showed up the next day in a Montreal Studio to record the solo on 'Petroleum', not only playing the end solo, but also participating in the arrangements, but then  Charlebois sat on the tapes for over a year before the album eventually appeared in 1977. After Grand Funk Railroad  broke up in 1976, band members Don Brewer, Mel Schacher, and Craig Frost formed the group Flint and released their self titled album in 1978, and because of his connection with the members from their 'Good Singin', Good Playin'' album, Zappa offered to play guitar on a couple of tracks. Obviously this is a very concise biography of Frank Vincent Zappa, just concentrating on his collaborations with other artists, but he has lived the most fascinating life, and the 'radium up the nose' story is fairly typical of the sort of thing that happened to him, so do check out his Wikipedia page while you are listening to this diverse collection of music that he's been involved with throughout the 60's and 70's.   

Track listing

01 All Night Long (from 'Animalism' by The Animals 1966)
02 Friday Night City (single by Tommy Flanders 1967)
03 Carry On (single by Barry Goldberg 1967)
04 The Circle (from 'An Evening With Wild Man Fischer' by Wild Man Fischer 1968)
05 How Would You Like To Have A Head Like That? (from 'King Kong' by Jean-Luc Ponty 1970)
06 Raye (from 'Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up' by Jeff Simmons 1970)
07 Well (Baby Please Don’t Go) (from 'Some Time In New York City' by Lennon/Ono 1972)
08 Dedicated To The One I Love (from 'For Real!' by Ruben And The Jets 1973)
09 Old Slippers (from 'Feel' by George Duke 1974)
10 Out To Get You (from 'Good Singin' Good Playin'' by Grand Funk Railroad 1976)
11 Petroleum (from 'Swing Charlebois Swing' by Robert Charlebois 1977)
12 You'll Never Be The Same (from 'Flint' by Flint 1978)