Splendido Hotel
Al Di Meola earned his stripes playing alongside Stanley Clarke and Chick Corea inReturn to Forever, but he made his most compelling personal statements with 1980'sSplendido Hoteland its precursor,Elegant Gypsy. Di Meola's compositional embrace of Argentinean tango (on a duet with Corea), Brazilian bossa (the romantic "Silent Story in Her Eyes"), and flamencocompas(the overdubbed solo piece "Splendido Sundance") made him more than just another fast guitar player and paved the way for his future work with John McLaughlin and Paco DeLucia. Here he duets with Les Paul on Bert Kaempfert's comfy "Spanish Eyes," tries his hand at singing an up-tempo soul number ("I Can Tell"), blazes through odd-meter jazz-rockers ("Dinner Music of the Gods"), and closes with the acoustic "Bianca's Midnight Lullaby." This is an ambitious--and very long--set with contributions from Anthony Jackson, Steve Gadd, Phillipe Saisse, and Jan Hammer.--James Rotondi