ELECTRIC RENDEZVOUS

When Al Di's music started losing my interest. Though I continued to purchase his albums through 1983's Scenario (because of the presence of Tony Levin, Bill Bruford, and Phil Collins) and have continued to make random samplings over the years, I've always liked his work with Return to Forever and Jean-Luc Ponty best. Here on Electric Rendezvous Al continues to display his mastery of both the acoustic (steel and nylon stringed variants) and electric guitar while adding more autonomy through computer and synthesizer technologies. He's good--he's done well to master these layering technologies and even tried to tone down his speed and flash a bit (a common listener complaint was the proverbial "too many notes!") but there has always been this kind of "soul-less" quality to Al's music despite his compositional growth and experimentation. The lesson (á la Allan Holdsworth) that prodigious skill and capacious brain do not always make for great art.

It's hard to rate anything by this hard-working virtuoso at less than four stars but if you're going to do it to one, this is the one.