Al Di Meola: Friday Night at Olive Garden
Wong Notes
Premier Guitar
4.9 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2024
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The legendary shred maestro—best known for his work as a solo artist and as a member of Return to Forever and other high-profile, hot-shot collabs—drops by to chat with Cory about his new epic full-length, Twentyfour. It features “sixteen brand-new compositions and they’re all very involved. I hope I don’t have to do this again.”
One of Di Meola’s biggest projects is, of course, the guitar trio he shared with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía and their thrilling 1981 record, Friday Night in San Francisco, which elevated the acoustic guitar ensemble to the level of high art. Di Meola shares the behind-the-scenes stories of that tour and the 2022 archival release from the next night’s concert, Saturday Night in San Francisco. He calls the ensemble’s dynamic a “real healthy competition” and explains, “I knew I was up against two guys who were relentless in their delivery of phenomenal ideas. When they finished a solo, it was like, ’Oh my god, what am I gonna come up with.”
No chat with Di Meola, who famously opened up his kitchen in the post-lockdown part of the pandemic, would be complete without a survey of Southern Italian food. Why is sfogliatelle the maestro’s favorite pastry, and where does he get his? If he’s on tour and there’s nowhere to eat but an Olive Garden, what’s his order? And much, much more.
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Produced by Jason Shadrick and Cory Wong
Additional Editing by Shawn Persinger
Presented by DistroKid
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What's happening? Welcome to Wong Notes podcast. I'm your host, Corey Wong. I'm feeling good today. I just finished my Stanley Cup bracket. You know, I got in a little late. I know we're a couple games in. I'm a hockey guy, okay? Yeah, I'm from Minnesota. I'm a hockey guy. What do you expect? I play music. I decided to go into music and not hockey. Look at me. My physique lends itself better to music. My boys in the wild are out of the playoffs this year, so I don't know who to root for. I'm all over the place. But tell you what? I can't believe I'm starting this podcast with a hockey rant. That's what you get here. You're getting straight off the top of the dome. |
| 0:38.3 | I don't want my boys in the Minnesota wild to think I abandon them. I was looking online. I saw it was a lot of empty seats for that last game. I had to rally. Put the call. Hey, everybody, we're going to the wild. We got to support the boys. It doesn't matter if this game, quote, unquote, doesn't count. you got to support your team. You got to support your cats, okay? |
| 0:55.6 | I went out to the last game. I cheered. I stayed all the way to the end. I'm going to support them all the way. Okay. That's my boys. That's my boys. I'm still proud of them, no matter what the scores are. Okay. Hometown, Minnesota, state of hockey. Anyways, wow, Never done a hockey rant on a guitar podcast before. Always a first. |
| 1:12.1 | Tell you what, today's guest, Al. Minnesota, state of hockey. Anyways, wow, never done a hockey rant on a guitar podcast before. |
| 1:13.2 | Always a first. |
| 1:16.5 | Tell you what, today's guest, Al Dimiola, speaking of athletics. |
| 1:22.8 | It is an athletic feat what this cat has been able to pull off on the guitar over the last several decades. |
| 1:24.2 | I've been a fan of Dimiola since I was a kid. |
| 1:26.3 | My dad got me hip to this record. He had this |
| 1:29.8 | record collection that was insane. And there was a DiMiola record. The first time I was like, oh, |
| 1:34.1 | that's the guy from that one live concert record that my dad has. Where is the three guys up there? |
| 1:41.7 | Play it absolutely legendary album with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia. |
| 1:47.8 | Incredible record. You got to check it out if you're not familiar. |
| 1:50.6 | Also, return to forever. Alde Mioa Solo Records. |
| 1:54.0 | This cat is a ledge in the jazz and jazz fusion world. |
| 1:59.0 | Actually, he has this book that was like a kind of jazz study book that might be out of print |
| 2:07.0 | that I remember I found a weird copy of when I was in college. |
| 2:10.3 | Studied a bunch of that. |
| 2:11.5 | I studied a bunch of these Cats books and learned a ton. |
| 2:15.0 | Al's a great player. |
| 2:16.5 | Fun to talk to him. Cats all over the place, man. He's in Miami. Al's a great player. Fun to talk to him. |
| 2:18.2 | Cats all over the place, man. |
... |
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