moment of shock and awe

Untold numbers of guitars (or at least calories) have been burnt by players attempting to expand the possibilities of the instrument.  After xy techno theatre, I still liked my wild electronic sounds, but I wanted a more honest approach to the guitar, bare fingers on strings, letting the tone of the wood ring out on its own.  I ended up traveling to Cordoba, Spain, where I soaked up everything from the Medieval history of the Crusades to the Flamenco performances.  Mostly, I took pictures. 

Upon my return, I set to work on a new project which combined live video mixing of the pictures I'd taken, some Drum 'n' Bass mixes my DJ Doc Livingston had come up with and bassist Matt Deason had fleshed out, spoken word, and the sounds of my fingernails splintering against nylon strings.

When the John McLaughlin/Al Di Meola/ Paco de Lucia Guitar Trio began touring in the 1980s, McLaughlin's angular assault had been renowned for the decade since his days with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Di Meola's gorgeous pattern flow had established a new benchmark for cleanliness of technique.  But the traditional integrity of Paco de Lucia's Flamenco background - and the fact that without a pick, with just the blurred fingers of his right hand he could compete with the others - placed him in a class by himself.   Though not without the headaches and backaches he suffered while performing, reportedly due to the strain of keeping up with the others' advanced knowledge of jazz improvisation!

"Some people assume that they were learning from me, but I can tell you it was me learning from them. I have never studied music, I am incapable of studying harmony - I don't have the discipline.  Playing with McLaughlin and Di Meola was about learning these things." 

Their 1981 Friday Night in San Francisco sold over a million copies and generated a significant interest in flamenco music, but by the mid-1980s, the Guitar Trio had stopped performing together.  Al said they'd run out of new spectacular fast runs to impress the audiences.  In an interview, he admitted a preference for the quieter side of music, something which Paco also felt, saying he preferred "controlled expression to velocity." 

Such blasphemy, coming from the greatest speed demons of their day, does ring of the truth.  But those unforgettable Guitar Trio performances, ones that resulted in rabid fan bases willing to support them through all the present and future chapters in their creativity, deserve their own moment of shock and awe.