vinylfanatics.com

**Al Di Meola - Splendido Hotel**
★★★★☆

In the annals of fusion guitar heroics, 1980 stands as a pivotal year when the genre's blazing pioneers began questioning whether sheer velocity was the only path to enlightenment. Al Di Meola, fresh from his tenure with Return to Forever and riding high on the success of his acoustic Mediterranean trilogy with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía, found himself at a creative crossroads. The question wasn't whether he could play faster than a hummingbird's heartbeat – he'd already proven that beyond doubt. The real challenge was whether he could slow down enough to let his soul catch up with his fingers.

*Splendido Hotel* emerged from this introspection like a fever dream of European sophistication and Latin sensuality. Named after the legendary Portofino hotel where the jet set once congregated, the album represents Di Meola's most cohesive artistic statement, a work that trades some of his trademark pyrotechnics for something far more elusive: genuine emotion and atmospheric depth.

The opening salvo, "Alien Chase on Arabian Desert," immediately signals Di Meola's evolved intentions. Built around a hypnotic Middle Eastern-tinged riff that would make Jimmy Page weep with envy, the track unfolds like a cinematic chase sequence through endless dunes. Di Meola's guitar doesn't just play the melody – it becomes the desert wind itself, shifting between crystalline clarity and sand-blown distortion. It's fusion, certainly, but fusion with a narrative purpose that transcends mere technical exhibition.

The album's centrepiece, "Splendido Hotel," stands as perhaps Di Meola's finest composition – a piece that captures the bittersweet romance of Mediterranean twilight with an almost painful beauty. The melody, carried by Di Meola's nylon-string acoustic, possesses an aching quality that suggests Debussy jamming with the Gipsy Kings. When the full band enters, featuring the sympathetic contributions of keyboardist Jan Hammer and bassist Anthony Jackson, the arrangement blooms like jasmine in the evening air. This is music that doesn't just soundtrack a European vacation – it becomes the vacation itself.

"Dinner Music of the Gods" showcases Di Meola's playful side, a tongue-in-cheek fusion romp that manages to be both technically dazzling and surprisingly funky. The interplay between Di Meola's electric guitar and Hammer's synthesizers creates a sonic conversation that feels like eavesdropping on a musical argument between Zeus and Apollo. It's the kind of track that reminds you why fusion was once considered the future of music, before it disappeared up its own technical posterior.

The album's most adventurous moment comes with "Two to Tango," where Di Meola explores the passionate rhythms of Argentina with the intensity of a man possessed. His guitar alternates between tender caresses and violent outbursts, perfectly capturing the tango's eternal dance between love and death. It's a performance that would make Astor Piazzolla himself reach for his bandoneón in respectful response.

Throughout *Splendido Hotel*, Di Meola demonstrates a newfound restraint that paradoxically makes his technical prowess more impressive. When he does unleash his speed-of-light runs, they feel earned rather than gratuitous. The production, courtesy of Di Meola himself, bathes everything in a warm, golden glow that suggests expensive wine and Mediterranean sunsets.

The album's influence can be traced through subsequent generations of guitar heroes, from Steve Vai to Guthrie Govan, all of whom learned that technique without taste is merely athletic display. More importantly, *Splendido Hotel* helped establish the template for what we now call "world music," decades before the term entered common usage.

Four decades on, *Splendido Hotel* remains Di Meola's most accessible and emotionally resonant work. While his later albums would explore everything from tango to flamenco to electronica, none would achieve this album's perfect balance between virtuosity and vulnerability. It's a record that proves the old adage that sometimes the most revolutionary thing an artist can do is simply remember that music is supposed to move the heart, not just drop the jaw.

In an era when guitar heroes were competing to see who could play the most notes per second, Al Di Meola had the wisdom to remember that sometimes one perfect note, played with absolute conviction, is worth a thousand thoughtless runs. *Splendido Hotel