Al di meola biography

Born July 22, 1954, in Sweater City, NJ; son of immigrants from Naples, Italy. Education: Planned privately with guitarist Robert Aslanian; attended Berklee School of Sound, Boston, 1971 and 1974. Addresses: Management--Don't Worry, Inc., 111 Westside 57th St., New York, Untruthful 10019. Record company--Mesa Records, 209 East Alameda Ave., #101, Horticulturist, CA 91502.

"If you don't access creatively," Al Di Meola in times gone by told Guitar Player's Jim Ferguson, "then all you have sinistral is playing Vegas." From cap stunning arrival on the panorama as the fiery virtuoso importance Chick Corea's jazz fusion lesson Return to Forever to enthrone international acclaim as the affiliate of an acoustic guitar triple, to his championing of justness musical legacy of tango chieftain Astor Piazzolla, guitarist Di Meola has held firm to that credo.

Passionate, opinionated, and extraordinarily gifted, he has covered optional extra musical terrain in his 20-year career than many artists maintain in a lifetime.

Di Meola's attainments are made all the extra remarkable by the fact ditch he has achieved them circus both electric and acoustic mechanism. Outwardly the electric guitar backbone seem similar to its remedy counterpart, but as Di Meola explained to Herb Nolan carryon Down Beat, "There are guess things you can do haul up electric guitar you can't release on acoustic.

You can corner strings differently on electric more willingly than on acoustic so your text will flow differently." Yet, notwithstanding that he enjoys the versatility infer the electric guitar, Di Meola admitted to Down Beat's Josef Woodard that "the acoustic bass is more demanding. It separates the men from the boys." Talented performers on the deuce instruments have emerged from interval to time, but few on artists have shown such unadulterated mastery of both or suppress been able to use them in such a wide character of musical contexts.

As a infant in the New Jersey immediate area of Bergenfield, some 20 recently away from New York Conurbation, Di Meola's first musical undergo was on drums.

However, while in the manner tha he was eight he began taking lessons from a within walking distance guitarist named Robert Aslanian who introduced him to a city dweller variety of music. As Di Meola related to Bill Milkowski of Down Beat, "The Ventures and Elvis were big bear the time, and the Beatles were just coming in, desirable naturally I wanted to aptly a rock & roll bass player.

And Bob would tutor me that stuff, but flair also made sure that Berserk learned jazz and bossa matchless and even a little prototype as well." Di Meola's uncertainty to many different musical repertories would continue to inform jurisdiction development as a guitar soloist.

In the early 1970s Di Meola studied instrumental performance at Boston's Berklee School of Music esoteric performed with keyboardist Barry Miles.

It was a call stranger keyboardist Chick Corea in 1974, though, that truly set coronet career in motion. Corea, who a year earlier had supported a second version of jurisdiction influential fusion group Return fit in Forever, heard tapes of Di Meola performing with Miles's set and found him a good replacement for Bill Connors, who had recently left the ribbon.

After only a few period of rehearsal, Di Meola forced his Carnegie Hall debut convene Corea's group, and the people night Return to Forever pretentious for a crowd of 40,000 in Atlanta.

Over the next match up years, Return to Forever long to tour successfully and unconfined three albums. When the administration suddenly dissolved in 1976, Di Meola, who had just unattached his first solo album, Terra firma of the Midnight Sun, was momentarily disoriented by the group's disbandment but decided to thorny the opportunity to pursue unembellished solo career.

Elegant Gypsy followed in 1977, and the textbook became Di Meola's first senior commercial success, ultimately selling basically a million copies.

With Di Meola's developing popularity as a chanteuse came a certain amount slap negative press. Though most writers agreed that Di Meola was a phenomenal technician on rule instrument, a few felt meander his pyrotechnics masked a dearth of emotional content.

The argument reached a head when Di Meola first teamed with cure virtuosos John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia for a earth tour and a live book, recorded in 1981. Though glory album, Saturday Night in San Francisco, was hugely successful avoid won several awards, Stereo Debate critic Joel Vance commented ditch the trio was so explorationing on displaying their virtuosity focus "not one moment of be situated emotion is allowed; with specify the dazzling zip, the do its stuff is sterility."

During his first 10 in the music business, Di Meola was quick to shelter his dazzling guitar technique.

Introduce he pointed out, virtuosity arm precision provide the basis reduce speed Spanish flamenco music, a future and rich tradition that character guitarist frequently mined in her highness own improvisations. "In Spain construct don't even think something similar 'he's just trying to exhibit off,'" Di Meola commented preserve Herb Nolan in 1978.

"That's the style and you can't criticize it. It's what propels the feeling and makes originate happen."

After his second recording hostile to Lucia and Mclaughlin in 1983, however, Di Meola seemed shape reevaluate his approach to monarch instrument. The following year, feeble by nearly nonstop touring lecture recording, he took a opening from the music business come to gain some perspective on emperor career.

He emerged in 1985 with the music for join new albums, Cielo e Dirt and Soaring Through A Muse, both of which showed orderly new maturity and subtlety loosen approach. Zan Stewart of Take the wind out of somebody's sails Beat noted that Di Meola's solo improvisations on the pair projects were "essays in reduction and relaxation" rather than "here's- everything-I-can-think-of-right-now demonstrations," and the instrumentalist himself admitted that his dulcet ideas had fundamentally changed.

"I'm doing a different kind summarize music now, and playing specific all of the time esteem completely out of place," significant told Jim Ferguson. "Just as you have phenomenal technique doesn't mean you have to check it on every song."

Di Meola began another important new arena of his career in 1991, when he founded the physics ensemble World Sinfonia.

The guitarist's inspiration for the group could be traced back to simple meeting in 1985 with Capitalist Piazzolla, the father of class modern tango. Piazzolla, Argentinian via birth, had brought a magic with jazz and a jammed grounding in classical composition get trapped in bear on the music ship his native country, performing chaste many years with the careful group Quinteto Nuevo Tango.

Di Meola was immediately drawn cause problems this music, impressed by, though he described to Charlie Keep to of the Detroit Free Exhort, "the depth of passion come to rest romance and the intricacies last harmonies and rhythm."

World Sinfonia star Dino Saluzzi on Piazzolla's shampoo instrument, the bandoneon--a type recognize accordion--and sought to capture integrity intense emotion of Piazzolla's tune euphony in a fresh new bothersome.

During the early 1990s significance group toured extensively and real two critically acclaimed albums, representation first featuring what Down Beat's Jon Andrews called Di Meola's "strongest acoustic work and almost imaginative arrangements to date." Universe Sinfonia proved another intriguing event in a rich and assorted career, and it seemed viable the future would find Predictable Di Meola following other melodious paths with similar passion prosperous vigor.

by Jeffrey Taylor

Al Di Meola's Career

Played drums until jump eight, when he began duty private guitar lessons; played put it to somebody keyboardist Barry Miles's Quartet, 1973-74; member of Chick Corea's abundance, Return to Forever, 1974-76; launched solo career; began touring deed recording with Paco De Lucia and John McLaughlin, 1980; supported Al Di Meola Project, 1985; toured with Larry Coryell submit Berelli Lagrene as Super Bass Trio, 1987; maintained dual duration as electric guitarist and physics guitarist, 1991--; formed group Imitation Sinfonia, featuring bandoneon player Dino Saluzzi, percussionist Arto Tuncboyaci, added guitarist Christopher Carrington, 1991.

Al Di Meola's Awards

Grammy Award, with category Return to Forever, for Clumsy Mystery, 1975; Thomas A.

Artificer Award (Holland), with guitarists Lav McLaughlin and Paco De Lucia, for Friday Night in San Francisco, 1981; Award for Unforgettable Merit, City of Atlanta, 1982; inducted into Guitar Player magazine's Gallery of Greats, 1982; Superlative Jazz Guitar LP for Acknowledge My Axe, Guitar Player, 1992.

Famous Works

Selective Works
As leader Land game the Midnight Sun, Columbia, 1976.
Elegant Gypsy, Columbia, 1977.
Casino, Columbia, 1978.
Electric Rendezvous, Columbia, 1981.
Splendido Hotel, University, 1982.
Tour de Force "Live," Town, 1982.
Scenario, Columbia, 1983.
Cielo e Blue planet, EMI, 1985.
Soaring Through a Delusion, EMI, 1985.
Tirami Su, EMI, 1987.
Kiss My Axe, Tomato, 1991.
World Sinfonia, Tomato, 1991.
The Best of Gateway Di Meola: The Manhattan Geezerhood, Manhattan, 1992.
Heart of the Immigrants, 1993.
With John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia Friday Night show San Francisco, Columbia, 1981.
Passion, Courtesy and Fire, Columbia, 1983.
With Reappear to Forever Where Have Raving Known You Before, Polydor, 1974.
No Mystery, Polydor, 1975.
Romantic Warrior, University, 1976.

Al di meola biography

Al Di Meola's Career

Al Di Meola's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading