He holds the guitar in his hands as if it were his sixth sense. He doesn’t let go.
The conversation with Al Di Meola is curious. Different from any other. Sometimes the interviewees quote from books, while he names the word rumba, flamenco or jazz and illustrates it by strumming the six strings.
“Paco de Lucía is not only the most famous, but he embodied the entire tradition and took it to another level like no other flamenco guitarist in the seventies,” notes Meola, who formed a duo with the man from Cadiz and later, In the early eighties, he replaced Larry Coryell and joined Paco and John McLaughlin in the most recognized guitar fusion trio of his time on the international scene.
From his native New Jersey, where he resides, last week he crossed the Hudson to participate in the macro festival at Carnegie Hall in memory of the man from Algeciras, who died ten years ago. This time he was accompanied by Antonio Sánchez and Antonio Rey.
At the conclusion of the previous rehearsal, Meola, 69 years old, who was also a child prodigy, remembers that he discovered Paco de Lucía in 1974. He was in Spain accompanying Chick Corea. “There was a lot of talk about that young guitarist,” he says. “I was curious to know him because everyone was referring to him but he was not known in the United States,” he continues.
He went to El Corte Inglés and bought some of their records. De Lucía had published Fuente y caudal in 1973, among whose titles is her legendary Between two waters.
“I discovered something very advanced and unique, a great feeling and a great technique,” ??he explains when remembering that audition. Meola already had experience in Latin sounds but that flamenco impacted him.
He decided he wanted to do something with it. The occasion came in 1976. He asked his record company to contact the Spaniard’s. They recorded their song Mediterranean Sundance (included on the album Elegant Gypsy, 1977).
“We met face to face for the first time in New York, at Jimmy Hendrix’s Electric Lady studio in the Village,” he recalls. He even remembers that his guest seemed a little nervous. He didn’t speak any English at the time. “It wasn’t in his comfort zone but there was a part of Paco that wanted to expand, he wanted to get out of that zone and he had the courage to do what no one else in flamenco had done,” he remarks.
“There is something magical about that recording,” he says. Then Meola was the youngest in the guitar trio. “A healthy competition was established. We wanted to impress each other. Each one wanted to do something that the other two would like. We didn’t play for the audience, we played for the others in the trio. Paco would play and you would say, “My God!”, and John would try to be spectacular and then I would face the challenge,” he confesses.
“We manage to be better because of this, because of the incredible adrenaline of inspiration,” he says.
According to Meola, “Paco is like Miles Davis in jazz,” the king of flamenco guitar “and he still is, no one can compare.” He knew that he was the best and that did not mean he lost his humility.” A decade later, he recognizes that there is no way he can play like his colleague. Yes he imitates him in one thing. He buys his guitars at the same store in Madrid (Conde Hermanos). “To play with nylon strings you have to graduate from kindergarten to high school, because it requires much more effort.”
The fact that the Spaniard did not read music (“he always said that Maestro Segovia criticized them because they were not educated”) made the work more tedious, but nothing more. He says that if the trio broke up it was because of McLaughlin’s ego.
