Lee Ritenour

I’ve done a lot of albums and I kinda know when I’m onto something that was inspirational for me to record and create, and this was one of those projects where I really enjoyed making the album.

Arranging is the way I put my stamp on my music as much as my guitar playing.

If you play the very subtle jazz tunes with acoustic pianos, acoustic bass and it’s a dead standard, you are going to play very differently. It depends on the music.

Even though there are some great keyboard players on the album, there are a number of songs with no keyboard on them and the backing is all guitar oriented. This is first time I’ve ever done this actually.

I used a baritone guitar with a very unusual tuning that became the body of the composition, while the classical guitar is on top of it with the main rhythm part.

I had redesigned my entire amplifier system for this tour because airlines are very strict now.

Well, Smoke n’ Mirrors has very much a world music flavor and it doesn’t park itself in one country. It borrows heavily from the Brazilian angle, which is dear to my heart, and I recorded several albums with that flavor.

My son Wesley has just turned 13. He was 12 during the recording of this record and he is quite a drummer already and has been studying drums since he was four, but he’s also very interested in African percussion and studies percussion.