A Conversation with Al Di Meola – HuffPost 4.21.11

Mike Ragogna: Hello, Al.

Al Di Meola: How are you doing?

MR: I’m doing okay. You?

AD: I’m not bad. We just finished two nights in Boston, and we’re on our way to Albany on a tour bus right now. Things are going great. We’re playing the music from the new record that just got released, and we’re getting a great response.

MR: You’re, of course, talking about your new album, Pursuit Of Radical Rhapsody. What is the story behind that title?

AD: I just had to think of something original and different, and try to be a little cutting edge on it, but I think it’s cool. At first, people thought it was way too difficult and that I should reduce it to Radical Rhapsody, but I just stuck with what I came up with.

MR: Great title. Now, you’re on Concord records. Is this your first release for them?

AD: Well, Telarc is really the subsidiary of Concord, which is the parent company. I have a lot of records–I think this is like the sixth record now on Telarc–but since they were acquired by Concord, I guess this is the first one under that parent company, yes.

MR: You and Concord allowed me to debut “Strawberry Fields” here on The Huffington Post.

AD: Right, that was about a month or more prior to the actual release date.

MR: What was the thought behind some of the covers on this album, like “Strawberry Fields” and “Over The Rainbow”?

AD: Well, “Over The Rainbow” was really my tribute to Les Paul. I was really good friends with him, and so it was more a tribute to his life. It’s a piece that he played a lot, so I really just wanted to honor my friend.

MR: Beautiful. Al, you went to Berklee, right?

AD: That’s right. In fact, I went to the school while we were just in Boston–I had my daughter and my percussionist with me–and I was showing my daughter, for the first time, the places I studied, the buildings I went to, and the places I lived. It was really cool, and it’s a great school, by the way.

MR: It seems that every third person that I’ve interviewed lately has some affiliation with Berklee. Jazz and rock.

AD: Most of the students you see with guitars are all disciples of a lot of those heavy metal guys.

MR: And John Mayer studied there too.

AD: Yeah, there have been a lot of people. It’s far expanded since when I was there. When I was there, it was primarily jazz studies–people who were there wanted to be jazz players. But now, they have all kinds of expanded courses in studio engineering, vocals, and they even have dance now, which I just found out last night when I met some teachers that taught dance. I was shocked to hear that.

MR: You mean dance like club or electronica or actual dance classes?

AD: Dance like, artistic dancing. You know, all kinds of dance–jazz dance, tango, flamenco…

MR: …that’s wild. It’s interesting that they’ve spread out into a format like that.

AD: Right. They also have movie scoring, that they actually had, I think, right after I left. Then, they went into studio engineering courses, and things like that. It’s a smart thing to do. Other colleges have those courses, so why not them?

MR: Right. So, who is playing with you on Pursuit Of Radical Rhapsody?

AD: Well, I have Gumbi Ortiz on percussion, and he’s been in a lot of my groups for twenty-two years now, so he’s the oldest member of all the groups I play with, especially this one. Fausto Beccalossi is an instrumentalist from the North of Italy–I took on a lot of European musicians because we do most of our work over there–and he’s one of the main soloists on the record. Peter Kaszas plays drums, and he’s from Budapest, Hungary. I have a bass player from Havana, Cuba, Victor Miranda, and I have a second guitarist playing in the group, from Paris, France, Kevin Seddiki. Now, the special guests that I brought in on the record for selected tracks–and was really happy to get on the record–were Charlie Haden, the legendary Jazz bassist, who played on the two cover pieces, in particular, and then we have Gonzalo Rubalcaba, who, in my opinion, is one of the greatest pianists who has ever lived. Gonzalo is only thirty-nine years old, and he’s just a super-genius pianist that originates from Havana, Cuba, as well.

MR: When you look at where you are now, and you look at where you were back in the days of Land Of The Midnight Sun and Elegant Gypsy, what is the main growth, do you think, that has happened for you as an artist?

AD: I think the composing has really matured a lot, and I think a lot of my playing has matured as well. My musical influences have been really keen and sharp. In the beginning, playing with Chick was really a great thing because his was a very compositional band. So, it wasn’t just players blowing all the time and soloing, it was a band that was very influenced by parts of classical music and jazz, and then I added in my Latin influences that really shaped a lot of my early records. It was around ’84 when I discovered Astor Piazzolla, who is like the father of classical modern tango music, that was the most profound change in my direction of composing and playing, and it really has shaped even this kind of World Sinfonia group. Even though this is the third installation of the group, this thing has gone over extremely big-time in Europe because they are very familiar with the aspects of tango music, especially from a master like Piazzolla. So, adding in the elements of that, and blending it together with all the jazz and improvisation elements, some rock influences, and a lot of different latin influences–it’s kind of shaped a new sound.

MR: It seems like you, very obviously, had a love of that music already.

AD: Right. It was something that had started that far back, so, it’s just a natural progression that has happened, and it’s gotten to a better place now because the early fusion music was primarily electric. Early fusion was loud, fast, bombastic, and it was all the stuff that guys who are intelligent headbangers like.

MR: That’s a good way to put it.

AD: Yeah, and there were no woman that liked it, hardly any. What we’ve done is developed a kind of music that is also heartfelt, and we have an equal amount of woman, now, that dig the music, as well as guys. It’s evident in the lines that form to buy CDs at the end of the show. That’s really what Piazzolla had done to me, when I discovered his music–it’s the kind of music that actually moves you emotionally, not just technically. That, for me, spelled a new direction–I saw this as the future. Even going back to do the reunion with Return To Forever, it was not as fulfilling because it was really going back to something that I had passed.

MR: On the other hand, there was some foreshadowing way back when with Friday Night In San Francisco, your project with John Mclaughlin and Paco de Lucia. It seems like you really were heading in that direction.

AD: Sure, that was so pivotal–that opened up the door in Europe, in particular. I think that the guitar trio was really the pivotal moment. The success of that really opened a major door for acoustic music. I was primarily known as an electric player, prior to that, but the success of that was so huge–that thing sold like five-million records–and it’s still a big success.

MR: And you’ve done reunions with those guys too, right?

AD: We did one reunion some years later, and it was really big. What was great about it was it really afforded me the ability to go back to those countries constantly, with different types of acoustic groups. Even though World Sinfonia is primarily acoustic, it’s really due to the success of the guitar trio that we have been able to come back constantly and play in front of big audiences. So, we really started a kind of a movement with that record.

MR: Since we’re going back, let’s talk for just a bit about your Return To Forever days. How did that union happen initially with Chick Corea and the guys?

AD: Well, they were already together for a year and a half, back in ’74. It was kind of like the beginning of a movement of music–fusion was like the pioneering days, and they were one of the three main groups, along with Mahavishnu (Orchestra), and Weather Report was another. It was a really excited time, where it was really the first time that rock had blended with jazz.

MR: Yeah, and Miles Davis tried to be in on that too, huh?

AD: Well, if you listen to Miles’ records, they’re just jam session, but Mahavishnu, Weather Report, and especially Return To Forever were compositional bands. So, it had taken the seeds of those jam sessions that Miles’ had had and made into records, and, basically, took it to a way higher level. Yeah, Miles was into the rock thing, but he wasn’t a composer.

MR: When you look back at the years you were with Return To Forever, they were highly inspirational for a lot of musicians that followed. How did you function within the group, like how did you contribute creatively?

AD: The electric guitar was at the forefront, and I had the best guitar chair in the world. That kind of music was really written for electric guitar, so to get that slot was like a dream come true. In fact, they were my favorite band in the world prior to me being in it. So, really, it was like hitting the lottery. At that time, it really was kind of challenging–doing the reunion wasn’t challenging at all and even simple compared to what I’m doing with this group now. But it was really cool to have that because it really catapulted my popularity as a result of being in that group and being at the forefront of a musical movement like we were.
MR: If you look at Chick Corea and what he’s been doing over the years, it’s funny because he’s so unpredictable, yet at the same time, very predictable. You’ll know it’s Chick Corea when you hear it, but he still just keeps coming up with these alien variations that keep you interested. He has what, sixty albums by now?

AD: Yeah, I don’t know what it is that’s keeping him going.

MR: When you’re on tour, are you playing repertoire that is mainly from the current album or are you also going back and dabbling with your classics?

AD: This tour, we actually are doing music from all the different periods of my career. I’m going all the way back to Elegant Gypsy, which is something that people wanted to hear for a long time. We’re doing music from my mid-period, we’re of course doing music from the new record, and we’re even doing something new, that hasn’t been recorded.

MR: Were there things recorded for this album that didn’t make the record?

AD: Absolutely, yes. I recorded a little more than we could fit on the record–we went to the max. This is almost a double record, so it’s pretty long. I left off a couple of pieces, but we’ll get to put them on the next one, I think.

MR: Why did you chose to record “Strawberry Fields.”

AD: Without The Beatles existing, I don’t think I would have ever picked up a guitar. When I was a kid, they were really the most inspirational group that could have prompted me to pick up an instrument. “Strawberry Fields” is just one of about one hundred that I love from that group. It was something that was in the back of my mind for a really long time, to do something as a tribute to The Beatles–in fact, I’d like to do a whole record.

MR: What other Beatles songs are your favorites?

AD: It just goes on and on and on. The music from Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour–both records were recorded around the same time–I think both of those records are absolute gems. Abbey Road has a couple on there that are really good, and White Albumhas more than a couple. Look at the development of their writing from the first records and how they got better and better and better. Still, to this day, I listen to Sgt. Pepper orMagical Mystery Tour and I’m amazed at how good the production is. If you listen toPursuit Of Radical Rhapsody, I used some of their ideas, in terms of how to mix. For instance, I put the drums completely on one side, something engineers would never, ever do. I separate instruments, like they did, extremely. It’s those kind of things that really blew my mind, and still does, about how they approached production.

MR: I did notice that there were different mixing approaches on this album. Obviously, that was intentional.

AD: Yeah, it’s intentional because in the orchestration of the instruments, I need that separation of the instruments, where I have the percussion playing a completely separate part from the drums. If you mix it all together, it would be harder to discern who is playing what, but when you separate completely, you can really hear the individual parts because they’re separate, they’re different.

MR: That’s funny because the paradigm of mixing over the last thirty years or so is that the bass and drums get centralized, and the percussion is mostly tucked in.

AD: And I don’t like that, I like bass coming out of one side. I’ll never forget John Lennon’s voice coming out of the far right with the cellos on “A Day In The Life,” and then, all of a sudden, trumpets will come in on the left. I just think that’s so cool, I think it’s something very interesting that bands have forgotten about, you know?

MR: Yeah, mixes are mostly polite and homogenized. So, what was it like meeting guys such as Chick Corea and John McLaughlin for the first time?

AD: It was really amazing. I was at Berklee when I got the call from Chick to join the band, and I thought it was a prank of some kind. Basically, a friend of mine who was an amateur recording engineer had a tape of me playing, and he turned Chick onto some live gig that I had done with The Barry Miles Quartet. So, when I got the call I said, “Come on, who is this really?” and he said, “No, this is Chick Corea. I heard a tape that your friend played for me, and I’d love for you to come to New York and play with us.” I didn’t know whether that meant an audition or joining the band, so I immediately packed and went down to New York. It was, I think, two or three days later that we played Carnegie Hall sold out. I took the place of another guitarist they had had and it was really being thrown into deep water.

MR: And how did you get hooked up with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia as a trio?

AD: Paco had played on Elegant Gypsy, so a year or two prior to that, we had toured Spain, and Paco was the rage. He was this new, hot flamenco guy, who was just being talked about all over the place. We heard some music from him, when we were there–I think I was about nineteen or twenty years old at the time–and I was really amazed at his technique. I thought, “This guy is really stretching the limits of traditional flamenco,” and I thought how cool it would be to do something together. So, when I signed on with Columbia Records, it wasn’t until my second recording when I had CBS try to find him in Spain and bring him over to New York where I was recording at Electric Lady Studios in The Village. So, they made it happen, he came over and was very, very nervous. The first day, he was so nervous that we didn’t really get anything, but the second day, he came in–somebody gave him some good weed that got him really relaxed–and one of the first takes was so good that you could hear everybody in the room just flipping out. You can hear Paco going, “Shhh,” at the end of that recording. That song was released as a single in Spain and Germany, and it became a smash, selling millions of records. So, that was the beginning of when Paco and I thought, due to the success of this, we should someday tour together. It wasn’t until about four years later that we were approached by an impresario promoter from London who had the idea of putting us together with John McLaughlin. My reaction was, “Well, if you can actually get us three together, it’s going to be pretty amazing.” We did a two month tour, and at the end of that tour, we recorded a show in San Francisco, and that became Friday Night In San Francisco.

MR: Al, you know, you’re credited with being a pioneer of shredding.

AD: I guess that, now, that’s a cool thing. Some years ago, I was not so happy about being associated with that, but I guess that’s an okay thing to have. I view myself as far more than just a shredder, but if that’s what some people want to think, what am I going to do?

MR: (laughs) Well, I think they would mean that’s one of the weapons in your arsenal. I don’t think anybody would presume to say that you are just a shredder.

AD: Right.

MR: I just think it’s kind of cool that you’ve been acknowledged as that. In fact, your new album is being acknowledged a lot lately, like in The New York Times, Guitar Player,Jazziz, All Music, and Pollstar among others. I don’t think I’ve seen a bad review.

AD: Are you kidding me? This record has definitely got a major buzz going on it, and you can’t say that for every record. This record has a special buzz that I haven’t felt in a long time. I got mixed reviews on a lot of other records because U.S. critics are really brutal. In Europe, the critics really love me, but here–I feel like a foreigner in my own country, and that’s one of the reasons that I do more in Europe, actually. With this album, it seems like I’m finally getting the praise from the U.S., but also, it just feels special. We all feel like there is a special buzz on this one that has not existed on prior ones.

MR: You played on an interesting track by Paul Simon–well, I guess it started as a Simon & Garfunkel song, “Allergies.” When you were brought into that process, it was still a Simon & Garfunkel song, right?

AD: The whole record was supposed to be a comeback studio record with Simon & Garfunkel performing together on every track. In fact, when I was there recording with those guys, Art was there every day.

MR: Your guitar work was featured hugely on “Allergies.” I think you were the star of that recording. What inspired that performance?

AD: What happened was, Michael Jackson had a big hit with “Beat It” earlier in the year. So, I think it was Eddie Van Halen’s solo on “Beat It” that inspired Paul to want to have some kind of hot guitar part on one of his pieces.

MR: Awesome. Any inside stories on Simon & Garfunkel and Paul Simon recording sessions makes my month.

AD: Yeah, that record was supposed to be both Art and Paul, and Art was on the whole record, but he erased all of Art’s vocal parts because they had a fight–they were never getting along.

MR: Even for the Central Park performance, weren’t they getting along then?

AD: No, they just don’t get along. It’s legendarily known that they just can’t be in the same room together too much. Art came up to me several times during the recording say things like, “Hey Al, could you ask Paul to lower the bass on my vocal part,” or “Can he mix me to the left?” All I could say was, “What? You want me to ask him?”

MR: Amazing. I actually got to hear that version before it became Paul’s Hearts And Bones.I think they called it Think Too Much. Anyway, because you’ve had such a successful and creative career, what is your advice for new artists?

AD: It’s a difficult time right now because CD sales are not what they used to be, so you have to work the internet quite a lot, and there are some advantages there. I tell guitar players listen to your favorite players and try to copy what they do. In the course of trying to copy them, you’ll eventually develop your own voice. You’re never going to sound just like them, but you’re going to learn as you try to imitate the licks they’re doing and the style in which they play. Also, combine that with some formal education, some books, and go to a lot of shows. It’s a combination of all these factors that are going to shape you, so don’t ever feel weird about copying people because that’s how you eventually learn stuff.

MR: Who did you try to copy? I know we talked about The Beatles, but what other influences did you have early on in your career?

AD: Well, I was very fortunate to have started with a guitar teacher who was really versed in jazz, which wasn’t something I was looking for at all, I just wanted to learn how to play guitar. So, my training was a mixture of music that I wanted to learn, and also the fundamental aspects and theory of jazz. I had the best of both worlds, which obviously pointed me in the direction of playing with Return To Forever because it required the knowledge of both styles. I also learned how to read music very early on, which is another thing I would encourage music students to do, and stay away from tablature. It really depends on what you want to play though. If you want to stick to simple pop tunes–there have been plenty of successes in pop and country music, where there is no need to read music–but if you want to become a serious player in the music that we do, there is so much composition that you really need to know how to read music. So, I encourage reading music if you want to take your instrument further than those three to five chords.

MR: What does the future bring for Al Di Meola?

AD: Basically, my life is touring. There has been more touring than ever before, probably for a few different reasons, and I’m fortunate to be able to do that. It seems like what we’re doing is really catching on in my world, and that’s enabling us to get more and more gigs and stay on the road. These aren’t the kinds of days, like back in the ’70s and ’80s, when the record market was phenomenal and you didn’t really need to tour. The fact that I have so many records and people have known me for so long has afforded me the ability to play in all the countries of the world. There will be other projects down the road, but I hope to keep this as the nucleus group for some time because I think they have something special.

MR: And how do you stay humble after being dubbed “The Best Jazz Guitarist” by Guitar Player magazine so many times?

AD: There are plenty of great ones out there. I think it’s the combination–it’s my mix of not just being a guitar player, but also a composer, and I just have a certain voice and style. It’s really just what appeals to the listener. Everybody has stuff that is special–I could name about ten other guys who can do stuff that I wish I could do. The quest to learn more and continue to become better is still in me. I don’t sit back like some of the older jazz guys–and there are plenty of guys that do that, actually. I still want to push the envelope, get better, and do more interesting things, and I think that is evident on the new record. I think we’ve come up with something unique.

MR: I really wish you the best. You’re a great guitarist and one of my heroes.

AD: Thank you very much, Mike. It was a pleasure talking to you.

Transcribed by Ryan Gaffney