John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Paco De Lucia - Passion, Grace and Fire [1982]

John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Paco De Lucia Review by Jazzcat “stef”
This album is a miracle. I could stop here and you have enough words to understand the level this album belongs to. I’m bored when I read reviews where people point out a music as too technical or stuff like this. This music is technical for sure but it is absolutly marvellous and totally blazing on the emotional level. This album is a trip. When I listen to this one sometimes I find myself unable to listen to nothing else for a while. Technique is not against emotions especially in albums like this one! If you are not skilled enough to appreciate the beauty these players produced here, please, don’t write reviews! This album is flamenco, jazz, classical, latin, it is simply three mindblowing musicians that united to produce the last word in acoustic guitar music and an unbelievable chapter in the history of music. But this album is not only incredible for guitarists, it is fantastic for everyone because the songwriting is amazing. The credits go to the three of them infact they choosed to record tunes from each one of them (two tunes each) and I can’t say which are the best!! And every tune is the perfect sequel to the one that preceed it. It seems as it has been written by one single pen. This cd is even a fantastic audio experience if you have a good hi end system. Even if the tones could be better, the dynamic is there and you can hear each player on a different channel, so you have John in the centre, Paco on the right channel and Al on the left channel. You can recognize easily their different styles. You can follow the dialogs they are having improvising on these marvellous tunes. I own this one since 1990 I guess. It still impress me for the technical abilities of the solos and the compings, it still amazes me for the songwriting skills of these guys, and delight me on the emotional level each time I decided to take it out the vaults. A gem.