Al Di Meola - Elegant gypsy

The first meeting with Al Di Meola was very pleasant, because I've heard his name a lot of times before (Return to forever...) but I haven't known anything about the music. So if you see some unknown cds at home, let's take a try, you wouldn't know, perhaps that will be your favourite music.

Maybe his most famous album, Elegant gypsy from 1977 is a cool place where Di Meola can prove his virtuose talent. His instrument, the electric guitar has a very easy abilitiy to create harder, wilder things. Fortunately, he don't exaggerate this, only does when it's needed, at emphasized parts - and if we reached this topic, the whole arrangement is very good and logic. So Meola can be soft and also wild with his guitar. Starting with Flight over Rio in a mood which matches to the title, the album gets a harder intro, but in the second track, which is my favourite, Midnight tango, he gets more silent and the guitar and electric piano make a special beautiful atmosphere. But it seems to be that he's the kind of musician who likes progressivity in music, a good example for this is in Midnight tango at 2:31. I like those wild virtouse circles with the guitar very much. Later at a point he shifts to acoustic guitar and play a beautiful song, Mediterranean Sundance, which has got very famous. With its mediterranean mood and energic guitar sounding can take a real effect on us.

Watch its live performance by him, Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cadbYIzhqQ

(there are many more versions of it)

Midnight tango:

And an interesting thing: when I first heard the bass melody in Flight over Rio from ... I immediately remembered one of my old favourites, a Hungarian electronic band, called The Carbonfools, and the song Ushanka. You can listen to it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lgcthUTWX4