Tones Behind The Tracks

Al Di Meola on how a legendary live session with Paco de Lucía and John McLaughlin came to light after 40 years...

Artist: Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía, John McLaughlin

Album: Saturday Night In San Francisco (earMUSIC)

The coming together of three giants of flamenco and jazz-fusion guitar on the 1981 live album Friday Night In San Francisco was an era-defining moment. Al Di Meola was one of the hottest players in the world of jazz fusion, while John McLaughlin was already an established master. With flamenco firebrand Paco de Lucía to complete the triangle, it was no wonder the trio's acoustic odyssey became a hit record. Few knew, however, that a second recording was made the following night, capturing yet more of the intensity and fire of their extraordinary meeting. Now, those recordings finally have been released, so we joined Al Di Meola to learn how it all went down...

How did these recordings get discovered after 40 years?

"We finished our tour back in 1980. It was a two-month tour, the initial one, and we finished in San Francisco. We felt like the last two shows were the hottest. We were really on fire, the audience was electric, and we wound up - for some reason that I don't know - mixing the record in White Plains, New York, which is north of New York City. In fact, for me, it is right across the river.

"So we were mixing at the studio, and we had all of the two-inch reel from the beginning of the tour. We taped a lot of the shows, almost all of them, with a truck [mobile studio] - I mean, professionally - so I have all of the German tapes, I have Belgian, I know I have Paris and almost all of the shows. Then also LA. So the guys asked me, 'What do we do with all the tapes now?' Everybody looked at one another. So I said, 'Well, if you want, you could just have them all brought over to my house because I have a lot of storage room here.'