Latin can't die - it's the language of love

Al De Melola (centre) says playing with World Sinfonia has been the most rewarding musical collaboration of his entire career. Photo / Supplied

Hard though it may be to believe, jazz musicians were once treated like rock stars. In the late 60s Miles Davis' group played the Isle of Wight Festival alongside Jimi Hendrix, and shared the same bills as the Grateful Dead and Neil Young with Crazy Horse. And when jazz-fusion rolled around in the 70s - jazz colliding with rock - groups like Weather Report and Return to Forever played massive concerts, arrived in limousines and had all the attendant rock trappings of groupies and drugs.

Weather Report bassist Jaco Pastorius, with long hair and a headband, looked and lived like a rock star. He was genius, and dead at 35.

Into this heady world stepped a young, largely unknown guitarist from New Jersey, Al Di Meola. He could play fast and hard, make his machine sing and sting, and his debut appearance with the already acclaimed Return to Forever was at Carnegie Hall. It was 1974, he was 19 and he'd started at the top.

Di Meola not only brought jazz and rock to the band but a longtime love of Latin music which he assimilated into his sound.

"I used to hang out as a teenager in these Latin clubs because I was completely entranced by the sound of the Latin big bands and it had an amazing effect on me as a rhythm player.

"I started off with drums but I wouldn't say I was a drummer because I don't have great footwork... but when I write, my music is always rhythm-oriented and my guitar playing as a result is very much based on syncopation. That really sets it apart from guys like Santana who I view as a more vocal-like guitar player and not so rhythmic.

"The electric guitar I see as an instrument which can express beauty. And what better way to use it than with Latin elements which can be romantic at times, but also exciting at others?

"So that was something I touched on - but then the intensity and complexity of [fusion], and loudness from big amps became much less appealing."

After critically hailed, solid selling and intense but melodic solo albums in the late 70s, Di Meola dropped electric guitar for acoustic concerts with fellow guitarists John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia which lead to the multi-million selling Friday Night in San Francisco album of 1980.

Increasingly he turned his back on electric guitar and for the past two decades has only rarely played it, making a brief foray back with the Return to Forever reunion tour in 2008.

There were practical reasons for dropping the electric as much as musical: tinnitus.

"The amount of hearing damage musicians have is more than you could imagine. Some of us have a loss but others might have a constant ringing than never goes away, ever. That's tinnitus.

"It can only get worse and it's a scary thing to have to endure constantly.

"I still have the urge to play electric and do now and then, but a drummer playing at full volume and big giant amplifiers? The thought of it makes me cringe.

"It's not only a thing of danger, it just doesn't appeal to me very much."

Instead of volume Di Meola immersed himself in acoustic subtlety and music such as that by the late bandoneon master from Argentina, Astor Piazzolla.

"Whereas a lot of fusion was purely technical, cerebral and dazzling, his music had an equal amount of complexity and technical challenges but was touching my heart and moving me emotionally. That had far more depth and meaning."

That lifelong love of Latin music led to the formation of World Sinfonia, Di Meola's multicultural ensemble. He considers it the most rewarding musical experience of a career which has included playing alongside Paul Simon, Stevie Winwood, Pavarotti and Jimmy Page as well as everyone who is anyone in jazz.

"With Fausto [Beccalossi] on accordion, one of the greatest instrumentalists in jazz today on his instrument, I have the deepest collaboration I've ever had. There's no ego involved, we have a conversation together and that is very rare. It's like finding the perfect soul mate.

"With a lot of star musicians - I won't name names - if you do something interesting but wasn't what they were thinking you can get a weird vibe from them.

"With Fausto it is the deepest thing I've ever done. I've had some great moments with Paco and Chick [Corea of Return To Forever], but this is something different."

At 55, Di Meola - who still lives in New Jersey close to his musical roots - has had a long and influential career, and was one of the great innovators on electric guitar. He has carefully returned to it recently.

"The acoustic is more easy to pick up. The electric guitar always signifies, 'I gotta turn an amp on'. And an amp is always scary to me.

"In concert I'll play electric on maybe two or three pieces. But I won't have the amp facing me, that's for sure."

Lowdown

Who: Guitarist Al Di Meola of the acoustic jazz group World Sinfonia.
Where: Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre When: March 18
Key albums: Romantic Warrior (1976, with Return To Forever); Elegant Gypsy (1977); Friday Night in San Francisco (1980, with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia); World Sinfonia ('91); Di Meola Plays Piazzolla ('96).