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Review: Al Di Meola at One World Theatre
Elegance as a musical property is as hard for a listener to define as it is for a musician to attain - a quality residing somewhere between dogged hours of rehearsal and a searing, restrained passion.
Thursday night at One World Theatre, that elegance resided between the fingers of jazz guitarist Al Di Meola and his accordionist Fausto Beccalossi, toward the closing minutes of virtuoso Di Meola’s first of two shows with his World Sinfonia lineup.
During one of many sublime moments the pair, as the rest of the guitarist’s band stood silent, slowly reconstructed, soft and melancholy, the motif of Sardinian folk song “Umbras.” Then the pair picked up speed, meeting the band’s re-entry with a series of trills until Di Meola dazzled the crowd with a blazing staccato run, impossibly clean, traversing the fretboard from low to high, face contorted with the effort.
The crowd recognized how special the moment was and raised a cheer.
The Bee Caves venue proved an inviting, intimate setting to host one of the world’s pre-eminent guitar virtuosos. Di Meola hewed largely to his more recent, world-inspired material, sticking to his classical guitar for all but one song. From the very opening - “Misterio” from Di Meola’s most recent release, “La Melodia Live in Milano” - throughout the show’s 70-plus minutes, the group maintained a fast pace, moving seamlessly through tango, nuevo flamenco and funk, Di Meola’s furious jazz stylings stamping his signature to each piece.
Di Meola, 55, was discovered in his teens by Chick Corea, the keyboardist he later joined in seminal jazz fusion band Return to Forever in 1974. Collaborations with legendary musicians drove his music to new heights - Astor Piazzola turned him on to tango, while Paco de Lucia drew him to flamenco.
Thursday night, the chemistry between Di Meola and Beccalossi drove the concert, and revealed a new star in the process - the accordionist drew otherworldly sounds from his instrument, between the bandoneon-like tango lead lines and complex jazz runs that complemented Di Meola’s playing.
Late in the evening, Di Meola asked the crowd, “Where’s Willie (Nelson)?”
Now that’s a collaboration we should pray happens.
(Al Di Meola at One World Theatre, photo by Joel Weickgenant/special to the AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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