1996 · Album
The Guitar Trio
Released: 1996 · Context: Reunion after 13 years without playing together · Compositions: Three originals each from McLaughlin and Di Meola; two from de Lucía; one duet (McLaughlin-Di Meola) on Manhã de Carnaval
Three Guitarists Reunite After Thirteen Years
After more than a decade apart, three masters of the instrument came back together and played like they'd never left.
By 1996, Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía, and John McLaughlin had gone their separate ways long enough that a reunion felt genuinely significant. Thirteen years is a long time in music — long enough for players to develop in different directions, to find new voices, to wonder if the old chemistry still exists. When they came back together for The Guitar Trio (1996), the question wasn't whether they could still play at a high level individually. It was whether they could still listen to each other, still find that balance between solo virtuosity and genuine conversation.
The album splits the writing fairly evenly: McLaughlin and Di Meola each contributed three originals, de Lucía two, and there's a duet between McLaughlin and Di Meola on "Manhã de Carnaval" that gives the record a moment of restraint among all that technical firepower. This distribution matters because it means nobody dominates the session. Each player gets space to set the agenda, then has to respond to the others' ideas. That's harder than it sounds when you're dealing with three people who can all play circles around most musicians alive.
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings gave this album three and a half stars, which feels fair — it's a solid, professional effort that proves these three still belong in a room together. But it's not a masterpiece, and it doesn't pretend to be. What it does is deliver exactly what the reunion promised: three guitarists playing at the top of their game, no gimmicks, no overdubs masking doubt. For Di Meola especially, this was a chance to return to a collaboration that had helped define his reputation early on, and stepping back into that context after so long away shows what a player learns by going places and coming back.
Who's playing
Where next?
More by Al Di Meola
Friday Night in San Francisco 1981
Elegant Gypsy 1977
Passion, Grace & Fire 1983
Electric Rendezvous 1982
The musicians on this record
Siroco 1987
Paco de Lucía
plays classical guitar here
plays classical guitar here
Time Remembered: John McLaughlin Plays Bill Evans 1993
John McLaughlin
plays acoustic guitar here
plays acoustic guitar here
