Guitarist
Roni Ben-Hur is clearly influenced by his mentor,
Barry Harris, and his biggest influence,
Kenny Burrell. Slowly but surely, he's breaking away from their bop-oriented persuasion to develop his own charming single-line and minimal chord melodic strategy. He's also formulating a more open-ended approach that includes his pronounced Jewish/Sephardic/Tunisian heritage and Spanish/Moorish elements. This creates separate and equal segments that speak to all of these strains that have influenced modern jazz at one time or another. With substantial help from bassist
Rufus Reid, drummer
Lewis Nash, and percussionist
Steve Kroon,
Ben-Hur has a band that literally can do no wrong, totally professional as can be. Pianist
Ronnie Mathews is also in on the proceedings and plays his heart out, albeit six months before he passed away from pancreatic cancer, and a mere month shy of his 73rd birthday.
Fortuna not only represents the good will
Ben-Hur has experienced through his career, but also is the first name of his mother, and that sentiment flows throughout the recording. One of only two originals from the pen of
Ben-Hur is the title track, mixing and matching 6/8 time with Latin music amalgamated with bop and recognizable snippets of several familiar songs. "Guess Who" is the other new composition, a simple samba jazz-based theme where the single-line string theory comes shining through.