Guitar Heroes: Two from the past

 

purchase [ Casino / DiMeola ]

purchase [ Electric Dreams / McLaughlin]

They blew me away. That's in the past tense, as in  - I don't listen to them much these days. But they were a major part of my musical formation. So .. this is kind of a trip back down memory lane. Maybe these sounds will reverberate with you.

A search of the SMM blog for a few guitar players that came to mind shows that 2  have not been featured much here. Curious. They are both top of the list for fame and, of course, skill, but SMM writers have not posted much about them.

The two are related - in that they collaborated on a 1981 live album together with Paco De Lucia (who I mentioned in our annual memoriam back in 2015. SMM alumnus Geoviki touched on one of my choices previously, as did I at various times in the past. But they haven't been noted as much as it seems to me they ought.

The common thread here, aside from being sterling guitar players, and the <Friday Night in San Fransisco> collaboration album is jazz-fusion. Blisteringly fast fingers/notes. So many so that both of my choices below have been critiqued as playing too many notes.

Al Dimeola's guitar style mostly caught my attention with its Mediterranean sounds. Mixed with a touch of jazz, the result is ... well... listen for yourself:

John McLaughlin has always come across to me as a little more to the east on the world map in terms of sound. Able to bring that sound back west, in my mind <My Goal's Beyond> and the Mahavishnu period are firmly rooted in a more Asian than Mediterranean sound:

In Memoriam: Paco de Lucia

purchase Mediterranean Sundance as an mp3
purchase the album Friday Night in San Fransisco

Paco de Lucia passed away unexpectedly in February 2014 while in Mexico. He was in his mid-late 60s. More or less born and bred as a flamenco guitarist, his father, brothers, uncles - all played guitar - some of them as members of his sextet.

But de Lucia would probably never have come to my attention if it hadnt been for his musical exploration for ways to extend flamenco beyond its traditional Spanish home. From the 1970s, he teamed with the kind of musicians that I would have been more likely to listen to: Back in the 70s and 80s, my musical muses included Al Dimeola and John McLaughlin , who here collaborate to display what may well be the collected fastest fingers in guitar on one stage/album and they do their best to outshine eachother in this clip. My personal favorite of the trio is Al Dimeola, but Paco de Lucia's classical background seems to stand out as "style". John McLaughlin's performance on the other hand carries the inflections of his Mahavishnu influence - a slightly oriental or almost transcendental juxtapositions of notes.

Although he is going to be remembered as a flamenco master, de Lucia also played with other jazz greats besides his most famous trio above, including at one time or another Chick Correa. Like so:

And Larry Coryell: