- SCENARIO
Um, I feel this is gonna be a short review. 'Cause there's really nothing more to say right now, well, the lineup, maybe. Al di Meola, obviously, Jan Hammer on keyboards, Steve Gadd on drums, Mingo Lewis on percussion, Anthony Jackson on base...and then Philippe Saisse replaces Jan Hammer on "Black cat Shuffle" and Paco de Lucia joins Al in a duet called "Passion, Grace & Fire".
The main sound of the album is a pretty rocking electric fusion (as if fusion ever was acoustic), with some calmer tunes and a classic guitar thingy (that mentioned duet, yeah). All of it is of high standard, and there are no really low points of the album, but, on the other hand, few tunes are really great. So, here you are your average good Al di Meola album. With a lot of rock, compared to other of his albums.
"God Bird Change" is a Mingo Lewis composition, and is an energetic tune without a really good melody, but it does well on its speed and the keyboard line. The keyboard does a little too much, some of the faster notes would've sounded better with a guitar or base doing them. A little percussive break comes in, and after that, a pretty melodic part before the speedy part comes back. A very speedy and, well, rocking fusion tune, sorry if I repeat myself.
"Electric Rendezvous" opens calmly with some neat guitar notes, soothing and so, but after a while it gets, well, louder and jazzier and with some cool keyboard/guitar interplay, it almost sounds like something you can find on a King Crimson disc from the 80's. Then comes a part that opens with a rocky bass line, which seems quite cheesy, but it gets better when a mighty rythm guitar comes in and makes the track rock. Then, some guitar solos, some annoying synth outbursts, then a structural change again, and this time the song gets a ruling guitar/base melody which sounds almost thrash-metal-ish, but with small solos here and there. Then comes another change in the song, this time into a, aw, nevermind. Just another structural change. A really a-changing track, and that is were most of its charm lies. There's some good melodies as well, being an Al di Meola composition or not.
"Passion, Grace & Fire" is that guitar duet I mentioned, with Paco de Lucia adding some guitars. It's a neat interplay, but I don't like this kind of classical guitar jazz too much. I guess it's the guitarists who have most fun, since they get a good opportunity to show us how amazing musicians they are. Not an intention I dig too much, and that's why I dislike some of the latter albums. "Hey, aren't his other, more fusionate tunes long guitar solos too?" one may ask, and yes, but I feel that there's more, um, meaning in a band-performed tune. Anyway. Hope you got what I was trying to say. It's this fact about me not being too perfect in English yet. And, well, I do enjoy this kind of music, but only in small doses, as this time.
"Cruisin'" is a Jan Hammer tune, which is synonymous with rocking, the problem is that the song don't get that certain flow "Electric Rendezvous" has in some places, it feels, um, tottering. But, decent tune anyway.
"Black Cat Shuffle" is written by the mentioned Philippe Saisse, and I think I also mentioned somewhere that he has taken over the keyboards for this time. It's another quite rocking tune, with that "Black Night" base and some cool guitar lines. But, well, there should've been a rythm guitar to deliver some crunch and perhaps a higher pace, Al di meola doing Souther doesn't seem too good. But again, still a decent tune.
"Ritmo de la Noche" opens a row of calmer song, this time with a gentle guitar and some little percussives to add to the mood. Then some keyboards comes in. And then it becomes some sort of an electric flamenco tune with keyboards (??) doing the melody. Um, cool, I guess...
"Somalia" is a short tune, barely two minutes long, but beautiful. Could have been a little bit longer, the guitars have some neat licks.
"Jewel Inside A Dream", well, it ends where "Somalia" ended, but the little melody was much better when made with electric guitars instead of a synth. The guitar comes back, though, and, well, it's really soothing.
The review ended up being a pretty averagely long one, obviously, but agree that most of it actually were this song-by-song thing. I didn't say a lot.
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Uh, um, well, yeah...That's it, I suppose. But, in order to get something written...well, quite a lot of artist have their periods in a certain genre, and then, when they feel it's time to change, they release a live album to sum up the stuff and moves on. That is exactly what Al does here. Like Dire Straits would soon do with Alchemy, King Crimson did several times with Earthbound, USA and Absent Lovers, ho, y'kno'. Anyway, after this album Al would release the artsy, world-music influenced Scenario, and after that odd little album he'd move on doing some acoustic stuff.
Well, for the recording of this album he brought up Jan
Hammer (as usual!) on keyboards, Steve Gadd on drums, bassist Anthony Jackson,
percussionist Mingo Lewis and, for the overdubs, a second keyboardist,
Victor Godsey. And together they manage to get a mighty sound going, of course
with Al's guitar in the foreground. But, he's a solo guitarist, and a great
one, and he knows how to do things right, obviously. Well, the performance is
really impressing - the guy IS a godblessed virtuoso. He has myriads of notes
to play and plays every single one right. But...it feels, um, I don't know...I'm
just hesitant to give it the 13 it might deserve.
There are some surprises - "Nena" and the Jan Hammer song "Advantage",
none of them have been released before. So let's begin with them. "Nena"
is quite predicting Scenario with some dreamy, gentle guitars
and lots of keyboards. Well, neat. "Advantage" is a rocking Jan Hammer
tune, sure with lots of energy but without the easy-going factor which is quite
important in rock songs. OK, it's there from time to time - the, um, verses
are mighty, but the main lick isn't as good. Well, the other songs, "Elegant
Gypsy Suite" and "Race With Devil On Spanish Highway" from Elegant
Gypsy are probably the best songs, and probably the best performed
as well. "Egyptian Danza" from Casino is good as
well, and there's "Cruisin'" from Electric Rendezvous.
And, that's it.
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Well, yeah, that's pretty much it. He leaves the rocky fusion behind and does something else. Ethnically influenced fusion this time, still together with Jan Hammer, occasionally with help from other well-known musicians, Phil Collins, Tony Levin and Bill Bruford to mention some.
Hey, what more is there to say? Nothing much, really...other than mentioning the dreamy, well, scenario-like atmosphere of the album, often only featuring DiMeola and Hammer dueting, accompanied by a drum machines. It doesn't sound too exciting, does it? But believe me, it is, at least just for the atmosphere's sake. Al holds back the really fat guitar solos we all know he can do and satisfies with coming up with neat, sober licks, and he and Hammer manages to, well, make a beautiful record. Yeah.
The first song is "Mata Hari", which has that Egyptian atmosphere which makes you imagine sandstorms and pyramids and beduines and stuff, especially during the opening, where some windy sounds and a guitar and some timpanis makes the song really moody. After some while some keyboards and stuff is added, and it becomes more of your average fusion tune, except that there is no real solos - only a really mighty guitar meloody from mister Meola and some general interplays between him and Jan Hammer. The Egyptian stuff is again present at the end of the song.
"African Night" opens with some bird noises and stuff, and is a calm thingy, again with no solos, only interplays and licks. Jan delivers some multi-vocal keyboard tricks and various neat background melodies while Al does his neat, relaxed guitar licks calmly.
Hey, who cares about all these songs, really? Let's be brief, except in one case, the next song: "Island Dreamer", which is a collaboration with Phil Collins. It is credited to Jan Hammer, which usually means that it rocks quite a bit, but this time it is a soothing, refreshing song with xylophones and keyboards playing a really mood-raising melody. Really strong atmosphere and melody, just close your eyes and imagine your own tropical island with a thickly foliaged rainforest, a mist-covered mountain, exotic animals...go for it. I'm an island dreamer.
"Scenario" has another nice atmosphere, which just works as a blessing for your soul. It's a duet with Jan and Al, with a couple of solos from both, while "Sequencer" has a rather harsh mood, with arpeggiated synths and a loud guitar in the spotlight. "Cachaca" is again a calmer tune, but with a driving drum machine and a stick, and well, good as well. "Hypnotic Conviction" is quite a fusion tune, with a nice guitar line here and there, while "Calliope" is a collaboration with Bill Bruford and Tony Levin. Well, I'd like to hear from both guests, so in that case, it's rather disappointing. However, it is a really good, moody song, with an exciting guitar solo. But hey, where is Tony's sticks and Bill's fabulous light drumming? Any decent musician could've done this just as well. "Scoundrel" ends the album on a pretty fast note, with a speedy guitar line and some echoey keyboard licks here and there. Sounds really great.
Well, I guess this isn't much of an album to pick singles from, but as a whole, it is one of the strongest electric guitar albums of the decade. The best thing with it is the developement of Al's songwriting, which nowadays features less 'real' guitar solos and instead focuses on making interesting lines for all parts, which makes the album less a solo album, more a collective album. And again, awesome atmosphere.
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This album is, well, even further away from the speedy fusion he started out with. Probably a necessary move, since he had been stuck in that genre quite a time now. So, here we are, an album extending the new, more calm style he started developing on Scenario. Not as good, though...Well, Jan Hammer has gone, and now Al is alone with his acoustic and synclavier guitars, now and then joined by the, by this time, pretty familiar Airto Moreira. Who, as usual, plays percussion.
The sound, then...um, it’s half dreamy and artsy as before, half your-average-classical-guitar-jazz. It has a neat mood, that of a dark but not all unpleasant forest (sort of, at least!), yeah, neat. But come on now, Al, even if you have a multi-track studio and synclaviers, that’ll never replace that certain feeling a whole band can create. The album sounds too much as a quite empty shell of guitars (as too often is the case with “your-average-classical-guitar-jazz anyway) – hey, Scenario was awesome in this way! Even when the songs only were duets between Al and Jan Hammer, they still had another depth than those on here. But, it is a far lesser problem than on some of, say, John McLaughlin’s or Paco De Lucia’s albums. Only SOME of them, though, notice that instead of write a flame mail to me immediately! Those synclavs quite saves the album, actually – if it had only been about classical guitar plus percussion on each second number...ooh, that would have lowered the rating severely.
There’s not much to say about the songs, actually. “Cielo e Terra” is probably my fave, a 10-minute suite with lots of variations. It’s sort of the only song that hasn’t any boring moments. There’s a cover of Keith Jarrett’s “Coral”, which is nice and quite beautiful, just as well as there’s another couple of tunes which comes close to be in the title track’s class and quality...and some rather boring tunes. But I guess some people could really appreciate this album, while I, on the other hand, prefer lying on my bead, tightly squeezing the Scenario album cover to my breast and float away to the tones of “Island Dreamer”. Yeah.
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Well, Al obviously made a difference between a "project" and a "band". When he had a band, he let his fingers flow and recklessly fill up every second with his guitar solos. Now, with a "project", it's obviously not the same thing - suddenly Al is the musician who got the fewest solos! Sort of. When compared to his other output, at least. Anyway, he's unusually restrained on this album, and rather lets the keyboardist Phil Markowitz so the most solos. Of course, Al probably uses some weird stuff which makes his guitar sound like a synth, but anyway. Yeah, anyway, the rest of the "Al di Meola Project" is made up by Airto Moreira (who else??) on percussion and vocals (!), Danny Gottlieb on drums and Chip Jackson on bass. Letting someone sing on any of his records, especially Airto Moreira, who hasn't got a really great, nor profilic voice. Not a fatal mistake, but a serious.
Well, allright, I've mentioned that it is a "project" he has gathered, the fellow Al. Not a band. That also means, lots of solos! Not too much "band" feeling here, hey! And, well, it's a shame he didn't direct the project into being, um, more co-operative and less egoistic, becoming that touch of a big music unit which a good band can create. So, it's more like the traditional jazz in the way that there's some vocals, there's some keyboard solo, there's some guitar solo, there's some bass solo, there's the jam part and there's the song's end. At least there aren't any drum solos. The sound they anyhow manage to create is some calm fusion stuff, mostly being Cielo e Terra with more musicians. There's one tune sounding different, though, and that's the quite upbeat, speedy fusion tune "July", which is a little bit of a reminisce over the first fusion years with the Scenario sound being mixed in as well. It has a charming little main theme going almost throughout the song at some level, and with various keyboard lines doing some fine work. Well, that's sort of what the song is about, but it is really more than what this poor explanation makes it seem like. It's the tune that made me give the album an 10 instead of a 9.
Well, the other tunes are in that calm, fusion genre, three of them with vocals. And, that ain't good. Moreira's vocals are really dull. Well, there's worse tunes, "Mariña" and "Traces (Of A Tear)", and better stuff like a quite beautiful "Ballad" and the melodically strong "Capoeira", just as well as the really enjoyable "Soaring Through A Dream", which goes through various steps, from being more of that boring stuff the rest of the mentioned songs has (well, except of "Capoeira" - but I didn't bother going into detail about that one!) to some cheesy section which is destroyed by Moreira's vocals, which just doesn't manage to capture neither feeling nor technique anough to sound good. The surrounding instrumentation is pretty impressive, though. There's noodlish parts supposed to be tight jams, classical guitar solos which are technically amazing, there's more traditional jazz parts with lots of jazzy piano, there's some parts with piano lines sounding like Genesis or some other art/prog rock...and that damn Airto Moreira destroys the impressive parts with his poor vocals! Arrgh! Well, the song isn't really great or so - it's just a 12-minute suite with lots of variations. And, I've been missing that on this album.
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