An Elegant Night at Paul's Mall
Al DiMeola- guitar
Stu Goldberg- keyboards
Eddie Colon- timbales
Eric McCann- bass
Lee Pastora- congas
Chuck Purdie- drums
Paul's Mall
Boston, Mass. U.S.A.
April 23, 1977 (2 shows!)
filename: ad42377flac16
Performance quality: A (This is Al in his prime!)
Recording quality: B+ (good presence of all instruments)
Source: 1st generation audience tapes
1st show: 64:47
1: tuning
2: the wizard
3: midnight tango
4: race with the devil on the spanish highway
5: piano solo (Stu Goldberg)
6: mediterreanean sundance
7: elegant gypsy suite
8: band introductions
9: encore: flight over Rio
2nd show: 73:04
1: the wizard
2: midnight tango
3: race with the devil on the spanish highway
4: acoustic duet: DiMeola and Goldberg
5: DiMeola acoustic solo
6: elegant gypsy suite
7: dark eye tango
8: encore: flight over Rio
lineage: Sony stereo cassette recorder/ built in mikes? >
master cassette > my cassettes (trade) > soundforge 4.5 >
FLAC > torrent. This torrent is Glasnost Radio Production
certified gapless/glitchless/pegless/clipless. A couple of songs
are cut at beginning and missing a couple of seconds but
it's essentially a complete recording, no major flaws or claps
louder than the music. (That is considered bonos audios by GRP
and will not be tolerated at all in any glasnostrd19 upload.)
Comments:
This is 1 full night, 1 of 3 with this group for this run at
Paul's Mall just when Al has released his eventual 1977 Downbeat
Reader's Poll choice for Album of the Year, "Elegant Gypsy".
(also a huge hit for Guitar Player magazine readers).
These sets both include a very hefty dose of that, pretty
similar setlist for each show (seperate admissions). It was recorded
on one of the little Sony recorders, in stereo, not alot of seperation
but it's up close and personal, you can hear all instruments well
and the versions are nicely extended and jammed. I met Al at one of
these shows, he actually let me record his show but the Paul's Mall
staff said I couldn't. I got this tape in trade a few years later which
is probably better than what I would have had so all worked out good
there. I have heard rumors of a 1976 Al DiMeola FM broadcast from Boston,
(over WCOZ radio) of his 1st solo tour (Land of the Midnight Sun)
after R.T.F. but never heard it. This is his second solo tour, but
the one that made Al DiMeola famous as a solo artist. There is a Toronto
FM broadcast of this great tour but I have not heard about one from
Boston during this run of shows (WBCN would broadcast a set from
either Paul's Mall or Jazz Workshop, usually every Thursday I think,
in the early 70's, maybe it varied some..). I think this is the night
I saw, I know one night I couldn't because Weather Report was playing
down the street at the Berklee P.C. If anyone has some 1976 post RTF Al
(or of course Romantic Warrior RTF shows) Please upload it. I think any
fan of Al would be happy to hear this one. Don't know if Stu Goldberg
was on this whole tour but he is in all of both these shows. In the
second show, they sound like they're going into Midnight Tango (for a
second time in the show, just 1 reason I don't generally like 2 show
gigs, when the band only knows one set's worth of songs, but this one
was a goodie.) but then go into the Dark Eye Tango, which wasn't
recorded yet. Al's got so many tangos it's no wonder even he can
confuse them sometimes. It's almost 2 full Cd's of some fine playing by
Al just when he was hitting his peak (if like I you prefer your Al D.
electric!) There is some acoustic playing here too but the highlights
are (for me), the Wizard, Race with the Devil and Elegant Gypsy. The
Flight over Rio encore will get the blood flowing pretty good too.
Thanks to Peter P for the recording. He did a nice job of it. This
recording has seen some circulation, maybe with tracks out of order.
This is the 1st time I've uploaded it and the tracks are all in the
correct order now. It was almost 20 years ago. Time to get this thing
seeding folks.
Do not sell this recording.
Trade freely and losslessly.