LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN

After joining Chick Corea's Jazz-Fusion project, Return To Forever in 1974, guitarist Al DiMeola released his first solo album in 1976, named "Land of the Midnight Sun". DiMeola was 21 at the release of the album and I am surprised over his mind-bogglingly technical skills at so young age, and this album shows both his technical skills, as well as his songwriting skills very nicely through-out the album's (shockingly short) playing time at 35- minutes. Another great positive with this release is that DiMeola is themed up with a nice handful of guest musicians, including Jaco Pastorius from Weather Report and Chick Corea, who plays a beautiful acoustic duet with DiMeola on the last track. The music has very few weak moments and is a pleasant surprise to your ears.

Overall, "Land Of The Midnight Sun" is a completely necessary release to be featured in your Jazz-Rock collection (or Jazz collection for that matter). The only real flaw is the short playing time. Otherwise, there's not much here to dislike. One of the best debut's I know! 4.5/5