A fabulous technique, an impressive style that combines Latin and jazz and dexterity to drool over. Guitarist Al DiMeola's status remains huge. Colleagues and guitar adepts praise the New Jersey raised musician for his lyrical input in the guitar scene. DiMeola's career is bipartite. On the one hand, there is his affinity with jazz rock and fusion, which started at age 19 in Chick Corea's group Return to Forever but only really took shape when he replaced Larry Coryell in John McLaughlin's acoustic guitar trio in the early '80s. World famous is the album Friday Night in San Fransisco, on which the masters of guitar McLaughlin, Dimeola and Paco de Lucia compete with each other on dexterity. On the other hand, the guitarist has been engrossed in more traditional Argentine and Brazilian music over the years. His friendship with tango master Astor Piazolla helped him put more feeling into his music, instead of only emphasizing the technical, and on records like World Sinfonia and Heart of Immigrant, he focuses on explicit melodies and complex rhythms. DiMeola will be performing with his acoustic group World Sinfonia.
