Artist’s Choice: Lee Ritenour on His 1970s Influences

Mahavishnu Orchestra's first publicity photo, 1972: Jerry Goodman, Billy Cobham, John McLaughlin, Rick Laird and Jan Hammer (from left). Courtesy of Jawbone Press

Eric Gale of Stuff

Lee Ritenour (photo by Rob Shanahan)

For my new album, A Twist of Rit, I wrote four new tunes. But I also went back and twisted and flipped some tunes of mine that are 40 years old, and recorded them live in the studio with a 12-piece band. They weren’t necessarily my hits, but songs that I felt were still relevant. The reason I thought about doing this type of project is because some of the funkier music out there today-Snarky Puppy, Robert Glasper Experiment-sounds to me like a lot of the stuff we were doing in the ’70s. These tracks I’ve chosen were all important to me during that time.

Miles Davis