Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola (born July 22, 1954; Jersey City, New Jersey) is an American jazz, jazz fusion, and world music guitarist, composer, and songwriter, celebrated for his technical mastery, complex compositions, and explorations of Mediterranean and Latin American musical traditions.
 

Early Life

Di Meola was born into an Italian-American family with roots in Cerreto Sannita, near Benevento, and grew up in Bergenfield, New Jersey, where he attended Bergenfield High School. He began playing guitar at eight years old after discovering Elvis Presley and The Ventures, though it was hearing The Beatles' Meet the Beatles! on Christmas 1963 that cemented his decision to become a musician. He studied under teacher Robert "Bob" Aslanian, who directed him toward jazz standards, music theory, and reading, and who Di Meola later credited as his biggest influence.

As a teenager, he practised guitar for up to ten hours a day, drawing inspiration from jazz guitarists including George Benson, Tal Farlow, and Kenny Burrell, as well as jazz-rock pioneers Larry Coryell and John McLaughlin. He enrolled at Berklee College of Music in 1971.

Career

At nineteen, Di Meola was hired by Chick Corea to replace Bill Connors in the pioneering jazz fusion group Return to Forever, alongside Stanley Clarke and Lenny White. He recorded three albums with the band, including 1976's Romantic Warrior, which later received a gold RIAA certification, and the title track of No Mystery, which won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group in 1976.

As Return to Forever disbanded, Di Meola launched a solo career with Land of the Midnight Sun (1976), followed by Elegant Gypsy (1977), which went gold, and Casino (1978), featuring "Egyptian Danza." He also recorded with Stomu Yamashta's supergroup Go between 1976 and 1978. His 1980 double album Splendido Hotel led to a landmark collaboration with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía, resulting in the live album Friday Night in San Francisco (1980), which sold seven million copies worldwide, and later the studio album Passion, Grace & Fire (1983).

Di Meola produced Stanley Jordan's Blue Note debut, Magic Touch (1985), which spent 51 weeks at number one on Billboard's jazz chart and earned two Grammy nominations. Through the mid-to-late 1980s he moved into acoustic and world music, recording Cielo e Terra (1985) with Airto Moreira and Tirami Su (1987) with Zé Renato, reflecting a deepening interest in Brazilian music.

In the mid-1990s, he formed The Rite of Strings with Stanley Clarke and Jean-Luc Ponty, touring South America, and reunited with McLaughlin and de Lucía for The Guitar Trio (1996). His World Sinfonia III – The Grande Passion (2000) earned a further gold certification in Germany. Return to Forever reunited in 2009 for the live album Returns, and Di Meola continued to release solo work including Pursuit of Radical Rhapsody, which won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Album in 2011.

He received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 2018 and released his most recent studio album, Twentyfour, in 2024.

Personal Life

Di Meola married Stephanie Kreis in July 2016, having met her after a 2013 concert in Budapest. He has two daughters, Oriana and Valentina, from previous marriages, a daughter, Ava, with Stephanie, and a grandson, Orion, through Valentina. From 2019, Di Meola and his wife hosted "A Fine Taste and Music" house events, combining intimate performances with home-cooked dinners, before pausing the series during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In September 2023, Di Meola suffered a heart attack onstage in Bucharest, Romania, and was hospitalised for treatment of a segment elevation myocardial infarction; he returned to performing in January 2024. He has been widely cited as a major influence on generations of guitarists across jazz, rock, and metal, including Nuno Bettencourt, John Petrucci, and the late Randy Rhoads, and was inducted multiple times into Guitar Player magazine's "Gallery of the Greats."

Current Activities

Di Meola continues to tour internationally under his Guitarchitect Tour, with confirmed 2026 dates across the United States and Europe, including a performance at London's Barbican Hall.