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Elegant Gypsy
''Elegant Gypsy'' is the second album by American jazz fusion guitarist Al Di Meola. It was released in 1977 by Columbia Records. Background ''Elegant Gypsy'' was a follow-up album to Di Meola's debut release, '' Land of the Midnight Sun''. The distinctive music on the album is a speedy fusion of jazz and rock, with lightning-fast guitar riffs intermixed with lyrical acoustical passages. The songs include explorations of Latin music themes, including acoustic genres like flamenco. ''Elegant Gypsy'' won an annual award for ''Best Guitar Album'' in ''Guitar Player Magazine''. Track listing All songs by Al Di Meola unless otherwise noted. Personnel * Al Di Meola – guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion *Paco de Lucía – guitar * Jan Hammer – keyboards *Barry Miles – keyboards * Anthony Jackson – bass guitar *Steve Gadd – drums * Lenny White – drums *Mingo Lewis James "Mingo" Lewis (born 8 December 1953) is an American percussionist and drummer who played wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Di Meola
Albert Laurence Di Meola (born July 22, 1954) is an American guitarist. Known for his works in jazz fusion and world music, he began his career as a guitarist of the group Return to Forever in 1974. Between the 1970s and 1980s, albums such as ''Elegant Gypsy'' and '' Friday Night in San Francisco'' earned him both critical and commercial success. Early life Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, into an Italian family with roots in Cerreto Sannita, a small town northeast of Benevento, Di Meola grew up in Bergenfield, where he attended Bergenfield High School. He has been a resident of Old Tappan, New Jersey. When he was eight years old, he was inspired by Elvis Presley and the Ventures to start playing guitar. His teacher directed him toward jazz standards. He cites as influences jazz guitarists George Benson and Kenny Burrell and bluegrass and country guitarists Clarence White and Doc Watson. Career He attended Berklee College of Music in 1971. At nineteen, he was hired by Chick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paco De Lucía
Francisco Sánchez Gómez (21 December 194725 February 2014), known as Paco de Lucía (;), was a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer, and record producer. A leading proponent of the new flamenco style, he was one of the first flamenco guitarists to branch into classical and jazz. Richard Chapman and Eric Clapton, authors of ''Guitar: Music, History, Players'', describe de Lucía as a "titanic figure in the world of flamenco guitar", and Dennis Koster, author of ''Guitar Atlas, Flamenco'', has referred to de Lucía as "one of history's greatest guitarists". De Lucía was noted for his fast and fluent picados (fingerstyle runs). A master of contrast, he often juxtaposed picados and rasgueados (flamenco strumming) with more sensitive playing and was known for adding abstract chords and scale tones to his compositions with jazz influences. These innovations saw him play a key role in the development of traditional flamenco and the evolution of new flamenco and Latin ja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1977 Albums
Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). * January 17 ** 49 marines from the and are killed as a result of a collision in Barcelona harbour, Spain. * January 18 ** Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease. ** Australia's worst railway disaster at Granville, a suburb of Sydney, leaves 83 people dead. ** SFR Yugoslavia Prime minister Džemal Bijedić, his wife and 6 others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina. * January 19 – An Ejército del Aire CASA C-207C Azor (registration T.7-15) plane crashes into the side of a mountain near Chiva, on approach to Valencia Airport in Spain, killing all 11 people on board. * January 20 – Jimmy Carter is sworn in as the 39th Pres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billboard 200
The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Often, a recording act will be remembered by its " number ones", those of their albums that outperformed all others during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 list in May 1967, and acquired its current name in March 1992. Its previous names include the ''Billboard'' Top LPs (1961–1972), ''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tape (1972–1984), ''Billboard'' Top 200 Albums (1984–1985) and ''Billboard'' Top Pop Albums (1985–1992). The chart is based mostly on sales – both at retail and digital – of albums in the United States. The weekly sales period was originally Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, tracking week begins on Friday (to coinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mingo Lewis
James "Mingo" Lewis (born 8 December 1953) is an American percussionist and drummer who played with Santana, Al Di Meola, Return to Forever (he was a band member for Di Meola's first five albums), and The Tubes. Playing Lewis plays congas, bongos, timbales, vibraslap, drums, bells, güiro, gong, Syndrum, bata, tambourine, cowbell and assorted percussion. Writing Lewis is credited with composition of one song on four of the first five Di Meola albums: "The Wizard" on ''Land of the Midnight Sun'', "Flight Over Rio" on ''Elegant Gypsy'', and "Chasin' The Voodoo" on ''Casino'' (retitled from his composition ''Frankinsence'' on his 1976 album ''Flight Never Ending''). For The Tubes album Now Lewis wrote "God-Bird-Change", which he reprised on Di Meola's Electric Rendezvous Selected discography As Band Leader * ''Flight Never Ending'' (1976) As session player * Santana - ''Caravanserai'' (1972) * '' Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles! Live!'' (1972) * Return To Forever - ''Hymn of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lenny White
Leonard "Lenny" White III (born December 19, 1949) is an American jazz fusion drummer who was a member of the band Return to Forever led by Chick Corea in the 1970s. White has been called "one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion". He has won three Grammy awards, two nominations and one Latin Grammy. Early life and education Born in Queens, New York City, White became interested in music at a young age. As a self taught drummer he started off his career playing with groups at the New York jazz scene. While he was living at home, his father would take him to gigs. Early on he played clubs in Queens New York such as the Aphrodisiac, Slugs, and The Gold Lounge. It was at The Gold Lounge where he had his first gig with saxophonist Jackie McLean. During the late 1960s he began performing with Mclean around Queens. Through this, White was recommended to play on Miles Davis' landmark 1969 LP '' Bitches Brew'' and feature on Freddie Hubbard's 1970 LP ''Red Clay.'' Within 1972 White joi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Gadd
Stephen Kendall Gadd (born April 9, 1945) is an American drummer, percussionist, and session musician. Gadd is one of the best-known and highly regarded session and studio drummers in the industry, recognized by his induction into the ''Modern Drummer'' Hall of Fame in 1984. Gadd's performances on Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" and "Late in the Evening" and Steely Dan's "Aja (song), Aja" are examples of his style. He has worked with other popular musicians from many genres including Simon & Garfunkel, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, Harry Chapin, Joe Cocker, Bonnie Raitt, Grover Washington Jr., Michael Brecker, Chick Corea, Lee Ritenour, Paul Desmond, Kate Bush, Chet Baker, Al Di Meola, Chuck Mangione, Kenny Loggins, Eric Clapton, Pino Daniele, Michel Petrucciani, and Toshiki Kadomatsu. Early life Gadd grew up in Irondequoit, New York. He started playing the drums at a very early age. At age 11, he entered the Mickey Mouse National Talent Round Up contest and was one of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Jackson (musician)
Anthony Jackson (June 23, 1952) is an American bassist. Described as "one of the masters of the instrument", he has performed as a session musician and live artist. He is also credited with the development of the modern extended-range bass, six-string bass, which he refers to as a contrabass guitar. Biography Jackson played piano before starting guitar in his teens. When he turned to bass guitar, he was inspired by James Jamerson and Jack Casady. Jackson worked as a session musician, in the Billy Paul band, and with Philadelphia International Records. Paul’s 1972 hit "Me and Mrs. Jones" was Jackson’s first No. 1 record. His performance on "For the Love of Money" by The O'Jays helped move the song to No. 9 on the pop chart and No. 3 on the R&B chart in 1974. Jackson is a student of Jerry Fisher, Lawrence Lucie, and Pat Martino. He has performed live in more than 30 countries and has recorded in more than 3000 sessions on more than 500 albums. In 2016 Jackson had to miss som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barry Miles (musician)
Barry Miles (born March 28, 1947) is an American pianist, record producer, and author. Life and career Miles was born Barry Miles Silverlight to Arthur and Hermine (née Klein) in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey. He joined the musicians union at age nine in 1956 as a child prodigy drummer/pianist/vibist appearing with Miles Davis and John Coltrane among other talents of the day live and on TV shows including '' To Tell the Truth'', Dick Van Dyke's variety show, and ''The Andy Williams Show''. He made his solo artist debut recording at age fourteen in 1961, "Miles Of Genius", as drummer and composer with sidemen Al Hall and Duke Jordan. Miles continued to perform with his own band in the early 1960s in which he composed the material that enabled up and coming talents such as Woody Shaw, Eddie Gómez and Robin Kenyatta to display their talents. He wrote the instruction book, "Twelve Themes With Improvisations", published in 1963 by Belwin-Mills, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer () (born 17 April 1948) is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the 1980s television program ''Miami Vice''. He has continued to work as both a musical performer and producer. Hammer has collaborated with some of the era's most influential jazz and rock musicians such as John McLaughlin, Jeff Beck, Billy Cobham, Al Di Meola, Mick Jagger, Carlos Santana, Stanley Clarke, Tommy Bolin, Neal Schon, Steve Lukather, and Elvin Jones. He has composed and produced at least 14 original motion picture soundtracks, the music for 90 episodes of ''Miami Vice'' and 20 episodes of the television series '' Chancer''. His compositions have won him several Grammy Awards. Biography Early life Jan Hammer was born in Prague, then capital of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mediterranean Sundance
"Mediterranean Sundance" is the third track on ''Elegant Gypsy'' (1977), the second album by Al Di Meola. This piece and "Lady Of Rome, Sister Of Brazil", are the only two entirely acoustic tracks on the album. However, unlike "Lady Of Rome, Sister Of Brazil" which is an acoustic solo by Di Meola, "Mediterranean Sundance" consists of an acoustic guitar duet with flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía. With a duration of 5' 13", the song is a complex blend of jazz and flamenco influences. Composition Set in 4/4 time and in the key of E minor, the song begins with a duet between Di Meola and de Lucía and then progresses to feature each guitar player taking turns playing rhythm and soloing, and occasionally soloing together. The song consists of a relatively simple lyrical harmonic progression, adorned by a flamenco rhythm. It poses extreme difficulties to the performers, however, because of the speed and precision required of Di Meola's picking on the steel-stringed guitar, playing extr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz Rock
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll. Jazz fusion arrangements vary in complexity. Some employ groove-based vamps fixed to a single key or a single chord with a simple, repeated melody. Others use elaborate chord progressions, unconventional time signatures, or melodies with counter-melodies. These arrangements, whether simple or complex, typically include improvised sections that can vary in length, much like in other forms of jazz. As with jazz, jazz fusion can employ brass and woodwind instruments such as trumpet and saxophone, but other instruments often substitute for these. A jazz fusion band is less likely to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
