Siberian Sundance

Al Di Meola, from Siberia to the One World Theatre

Race with Al Di Meola
Race with Al Di Meola (by John Anderson)

When last we checked in with Al Di Meola - in conjunction with May 2008's two-night Return to Forever reunion tour kick-off at Austin's Paramount Theatre - the Jersey pick axe emailed us from deep inside Siberia.

"[Touring] towns you couldn't even begin to pronounce," he followed up last night during the second number of his second performance at the One World Theatre.

A new, as-yet-unrecorded musical keepsake of the experience crept with bouncing mischief, the perennially Lothario-looking guitarist's fingers blurring over his acoustic's nylon strings. As the tune drifted into isolation, major chords summoning melting ice, Di Meola's international quintet, World Synfonia, thawed quickly, his Italian accordionist raising an arctic wind. In truth, Di Meola didn't need a percussionist, rhythm guitarist, or even a bassist - just a drummer and squeezebox - but then his jazzman's heart comes wrapped in a rockist approach. When the group exploded into a full, belly-of-the-boat cohesion, accordionist rearing back to howl wordless vocals calling the bulls home, Return to Forever seemed tame. "Those other guys," is how Di Meola jokingly referred to Chick Corea and company.

Most tantalizing was Di Meola prefacing his "Paramour's Lullaby" with the first three notes of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love," a tease repeated in the first of four encore numbers when he played the opening to "Race With Devil on Spanish Highway" from his commercial breakthrough, 1977's Elegant Gypsy. Fortunately the tune it prefaced was that album's centerpiece, "Mediterranean Sundance," which hasn't dimmed after more than three decades. Seventy-five minutes with Al Di Meola at the One World Theatre was just such a tango.

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