Al Di Meola
| Al Di Meola | |
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Al Di Meola playing at the Granada Theater, Dallas, Texas, December 6, 2006
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Al Laurence Dimeola |
| Born |
July 22, 1954 Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz fusion, Latin jazz, world fusion |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1974–present |
| Labels | Columbia, Telarc, Tomato, Milestone, Songsurfer, Valiana, Inakustik |
| Associated acts | Return to Forever, Paco de Lucía, John McLaughlin |
| Website | www |
Al Di Meola (born Al Laurence Dimeola, July 22, 1954 in Jersey City, New Jersey) is an American jazz fusion and Latin jazz guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin (from Cerreto Sannita). Albums such as Friday Night in San Francisco have earned him both artistic and commercial success with a solid fan base throughout the world.
Di Meola grew up in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and attended Bergenfield High School. He has been a resident of Old Tappan, New Jersey.
Having grown up with the rock music of Elvis Presley, The Ventures and The Beatles, Di Meola knew at an early age he wanted to play guitar. By his early teens, he was already an accomplished player. Proclaiming he was “trying to find myself, or find the kind of music that suited where I was going with the guitar”, he began listening to jazz players like Tal Farlow and Kenny Burrell. He was soon taken with Larry Coryell’s blending of jazz, blues and rock in the late 1960s, which would become known as fusion, and knew then that this was the type of music he wanted to pursue.
In 1972, Di Meola enrolled in Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. By his second semester at Berklee, Al had joined a fusion quartet headed by keyboardist Barry Miles. When a friend of Chick Corea’s sent him a tape from one of the quartet’s live performances, Corea hired the 19-year old Di Meola to replace the departing Bill Connors in his fusion supergroup Return to Forever. In 1974, Di Meola made his Return to Forever debut on the album Where Have I Known You Before. Two more albums, No Mystery (1975) and Romantic Warrior (1976) were released during Di Meola's stay in the band. This lineup featured him playing with Corea, Stanley Clarke, and Lenny White until it was disbanded in 1976.
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