Thirteenth Plectrum Podcast - Passion Grace and Fire

Paco de Lucia is that great musician/composer from Spain who pioneered the New Flamenco style. He is featured in one of my first podcasts. Add to him Al Di Meola, the American of Italian descent, who plays the guitar so masterly, and to these two add again the great John McLaughlin, for whom I shall dedicate a podcast soon....and what have you got?...A super guitar trio who can produce music that's out of this world! My best guitar heroes all playing together - what can one want more! This is what I am bringing to you in today's podcast. Greatness x3! And you can judge by yourselves from these tracks I am offering you from three separate albums. It was actually so difficult to choose which to include because all are of the same quality and beauty.
Most of the tracks are rather long, some even as long as 8 minutes, so this time round unfortunately I had to augment the MP3 compression. Consequently I offer my apologies for an inferior sound quality in this podcast. I cannot make you download a file of more than 20mb can I? This said, the sound is not that bad and one can still appreciate the great music as it is.

Podcast description:

TRACK ONE: Le Monastere dans le Montagne - From Guitar Trio. This is a John McLaughlin composition and one mainly hears him and Al Di Meola as protagonists on this track (Paco is somewhere in the background). It is a soft piece compared to the fiery ones that follow.

TRACK TWO: Fantasia Suite - From Friday Night in San Francisco live - 1981. This is a typical Al Di Meola composition on which all three collaborate in this interpretation. They take turns to show off their virtuosity actually and you can note the different styles in fact while they are blasting away at breathtaking speeds on their guitars! Its like a guitar duel between titans. When I finish listening to it I always end up saying "WOW"! Well, by now you should have got the message that I like this one....or not?

TRACK THREE: Passion, Grace and Fire - From Passion Grace and Fire. This is another show of brilliance, though taken from a studio album. Notice how the three blend together like its just one guitar playing! And then, for a touch of humour, they change the tempo to reggae! You have to be great to be able to do that.

TRACK FOUR: Short Tales from the Black Forest - From Friday Night in San Francisco live - 1981. How I wish I could see them play this one. I would be happy even to see them play it on video or CD! Note how they play in unison near the beginning. Note also how they start conversing with each other as if in a dialogue! Note also how they start improvising near the middle of the track and end up making funny noises and even change to the Pink Panter theme and so on. The crowd goes wild. I go wild too!

Check out this video of these three great guitarist:


PLECTRUM

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