ELEGANT GYPSY

Al Di Meola uses Spanish and Latin musical influences to provide a texture to this expansive exploration of his guitar skills. To my ears, it's a pleasant but not brilliant listen, and I think this might partially because it's very much a product of its time; the Latin-flavoured fusion approach here had already become pretty tired at the hands of Santana and since then has become very well-explored, and the production quality feels dated to me even though I imagine if you listened to it at the time it would have felt very modern. On top of that, I just don't find Al's guitar playing very revolutionary, and I'm sure that's because a million and one guitarists have taken up his ideas and popularised them, but I've already heard those other guitarists and I (and most music listeners my age) can't un-hear them before coming to this album.