ELECTRIC RENDEZVOUS

The musical character of Meola is back in this imaginative jazz, « tango » fusion influenced album. God-Bird-Change starts directly with a basic but complex fusion jazz improvisation with cool & nice technical guitar solos; exotic percussions with the addition of old dated synth arrangements. A dynamic composition. Electric Rendezvous begins as a mellow, semi-acoustic / electric ballad. It starts calmly to finally go into a confused, intricate electric "trip". Ferocious heavy rhythm sections with efficient solos suddenly rise, indicating a constant changing mood. Synth arrangements are light and misplaced. Passion, Grace and Fire is a flamenco duet with Paco de Lucia. An inventive improvised musical dialogue between the two guys. Paco's speedy technical scales are always wondering, alternating with relaxed melodies. Several variations are textured around the same melodic theme. Cruisin' is a pompous, amazing composition with ridiculously funny electric guitar / synth exercises. The groove is here but it goes nowhere. It sounds terribly mainstream and dated. Black Cat Shuffle really rocks, with a nice rhythmical bass line, epic electric guitar / synth duets. The atmosphere is one more time a bit humorous, ironic for me despite that the guitar solos are as usual irreproachable. Ritmo de la Noche is a long « tango » like exhibition, a correct evocation but it suffers of terribly bad dancing arrangements. Somalia is an acoustic ballad, a good illustration of an ancient nostalgic expression. A distinctive, alternative jazz fusion album which proves one more time that Meola successes to develop his own style. However nothing really new if we compare it to his 70's musical production.