ABILITY RATING
Advanced ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Key A Minor Tempo 60bpm
Will improve your…
✓ Picking speed
✓ Rhythmic accuracy
✓ Articulation
Friday Night In San Francisco is a legendary instrumental guitar album featuring the trio of guitar comprising American picking tornado Al Di Meola, fingerstyle flamenco titan Paco De Lucia and jazz-fusion superstar John McLaughlin. Recorded at The Warfield Theatre on 5th December 1980, the premise was remarkably simple, with just three acoustic guitars performing a mixture of pieces composed by all three members, and with improvisation and musical interplay to the fore. The accompanying tour was a araging success and the album has since gone on to become considered one of the most influential guitar recordings of all time.
All three players had previously enjoyed successful careers prior to this Super Guitar Trio, John with Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Shakti, Al with Chick Corea’s Return To Forever and Paco had achieved legendary status in his native Spain remarkably young, accompanying dancer Jose Greco at age 12. Al and Paco had collaborated previously too on Di Meola’s Elegant Gypsy record (Columbia 1977). In fact, an embryonic version of the trio, featuring the fusion pioneer Larry Coryell in place of Di Meola played in exactly the same format at the Royal Albert Hall on Valentine’s Day 1979, a year before San Francisco (See Track Record, over page).
