AL DI MEOLA — Land of the Midnight Sun (review)

AL DI MEOLA — Land of the Midnight Sun album cover Album · 1976 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
Having recently shocked and awed the JR/F world with two amazing albums (Hymn To The seventh Galaxy and Romantic Warrior), Return To Forever was riding high on the wave it had created, riding on Corea and DiMeola’s incredibly fast playing, displaying a monstrous but cold virtuosity that would eventually have a lot of fans grinding their teeth. ADM’s debut solo album was another monster that would enthral fans around the world. This writer bought the album within the month it came out, well before he would indulge in Nucleus of Liles’ start of the decade masterpieces, so for a few years, this album represented what jazz-rock was all about. Although called a solo album, you’d swear this could yet another RTF album as all of the RTF members appears at one point or another on this album. Musically speaking, this album is a bit schizophrenic, as 2/3 pf it is pure jazz rock,, while the last third is more eclectic, from Classical to

Starting out on one of the album’s highlight, Wizard, with its superb rhythm section and Latin percussions ala Santana and Al’s guitar, often Santana-esque as well. Starting almost on the same feel, the title track is a tremendous piece, where Al and Chick trade incredibly fast and virtuosi lines. But in this case, Al’s guitar resembles more McLaughlin’s while the Latin percussions might sound a bit odd for this supposedly Norwegian-inspired track. In terms of jazz-rock, this album would be stuck between Santana’s bests (Caravanserai), Mahavishnu’s best (Birds Of Fire) and RTF’s Romantic Warrior. Closing the album’s first side is a slow Bach piece (Sarabande), which might sound out of place, but provides a welcome interlude.

On the flipside, the album starts on the equally underwhelming, a progressive piece that comes with delicate female/male vocals that could come out of Carlos Santana & Alice Coltrane’s Illuminations. The lengthy three-part suite Golden Dawn brings us back to the album’s main focus, a sizzling JR/F (can’t speak of pure fusion jazz album yet). You’d swear this was McLaughlin with Hammer duelling/duetting back in 72 for BOF. The closing Black Forest is a Chick Corea-written acoustic piece that displays the duo’s talents and closely the album in a very worthy manner.

ADM’s solo debut album is one of the late 70’s crown jewels, one of those albums that will probably never age and is part of the history of its genre. A very highly and warmly recommended album, and probably my favourite, even over the usually better rated Elegant Gypsy album that was to follow this one.

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