AN EVENING WITH JOHN PETRUCCI AND JORDAN RUDESS

This is my all-time favorite record. This is a recording of a live performance of John Petrucci (Dream Theater, LTE) on electric and acoustic guitars and Jordan Rudess (Also from DT and LTE) on, almost exclusively, piano and in "From Within" on harp.

About the music, it covers a wide range of styles, from spanish-flamenco ("Furia Taurina"), melodical ("State Of Grace"), jazz-rockish ("Black Ice"), astonishing virtuosismo ("Bite Of The Mosquito") and emotional ("From Within", "In The Moment" in this song I actually felt a hint of Andrew Latimer's emotional playing. Every song is very well structured and crafted with improvised parts, but never getting to be pointless jams.

The only weak point that this album has, for me, is the fact that John Petrucci doesn't play an actual acoustic guitar. He plays his electric guitar with an acoustic effect. Even so, this isn't bad enough to take a star away. Another thing that one should know about this album, is that it went to the studio before being released. I found this out when a friend of mine showed me the actual recording of the show. They changed the order of the songs and removed parts where the crowd was clapping (they were clapping out of tempo!). Maybe they did a couple of overdubs as well.

Anyway, this a masterpiece by a couple of inspired virtuosos. Every prog fan can enjoy this as it covers so much ground.

Prog desde Guate!

Edit (July 7, 2009): gone are some typos. I stand by the rating, but this isn't my favorite album anymore. It surely is in my top 10, but not my favorite.