He launched, from 1976 afterwards, a successful and critically acclaimed solo career, noted for his technical mastery, complex compositions and explorations of Latin music.

[1][2] An alumnus of Berklee College of Music and a Grammy Award winner, Di Meola's successful career includes high-profile collaborations such as Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Larry Coryell, Steve Winwood, Jaco Pastorius, Paco de Lucía, Bill Bruford, John McLaughlin, Jan Hammer, Jean-Luc Ponty, Steve Vai and others.

[10]Although he went on to appreciate the "whole package" of late 1960s and early 1970s rock icons such as Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Carlos Santana, he never saw them as role models.

[7] At nineteen, he was hired by Chick Corea to replace Bill Connors in the pioneering jazz fusion band Return to Forever with Stanley Clarke and Lenny White.

[19][20] The album, as a whole, has been considered Chick Corea's answer to Rick Wakeman's successful The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1975), either by its medieval themes or its prog rock leanings.

[24] To market his sophomore album, Elegant Gypsy (1977), Di Meola did an American tour with Weather Report, when Jaco Pastorius had joined the band.

Years after the Elegant Gypsy sessions, Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucía were approached to do a tour with Leo Kottke.

[27] In 1980, Al Di Meola recorded the best-selling Friday Night in San Francisco live album with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía.

In the Spanish remaster of the album, flamenco scholars José Manuel Gamboa and Faustino Nuñez weigh in their impressions on the liner notes.

It notably featured former Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboard player Jan Hammer on the line-up, with sidemen Anthony Jackson on bass, Mingo Lewis handling the percussion and Steve Gadd on drums.

[32] Along with music from preceding albums, it featured a previously unreleased Di Meola track ("Nena"[33]) and two Hammer compositions, "Advantage" and "Cruisin'" from Electric Rendezvous.

Tirami Su also featured guest singer Clara Sandroni, whom Di Meola discovered through Milton Nascimento's Encontros e Despedidas (1985).

[41][43][44] Al Di Meola was one of the select invitees to Les Paul's 72nd birthday celebration on June 8, 1987, at NYC's Hard Rock Cafe.

Other attendees included Bo Diddley, John Sebastian, Rick Derringer, Robby Krieger, Jeff Beck, Nile Rodgers and Elliot Easton.

[46] Except for the occasional electric guitar foray on albums such as 1991's Kiss My Axe, he spent most of the next fifteen years both exploring acoustic and world music.

Di Meola stated that part ("more than 50 percent") of the reason for stepping away from the electric guitar is due to hearing damage from years of playing at excessive volumes.

Their world tour included a South American leg, starting at Argentinan capital Buenos Aires, where they played for 7,000-strong crowd at the Luna Park stadium.

[49][50] The "fearsome threesome" of Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía and John McLaughlin reunited for a final time for The Guitar Trio (1996).

[51] Al Di Meola continued his successful streak in Germany, being awarded yet another gold album for World Sinfonía III – The Grande Passion (2000).

The top package - the "Diamond" plan - includes dinner, a private show and a jam session, where guests get to play with one of Al's famous guitars.

[80][81] In an interview to Rick Beato, Di Meola explained how he developed and practiced this technique: "[...] when I was younger, and the neighbors downstairs in the next yard, I didn't really want them to hear me play.

Al Di Meola's 1971 black Les Paul, featured on his early solo records, came with a Bigsby, which he had removed for a variety of reasons.

[88][89] Still on the subject of note picking, Al Di Meola is critical of tapping as well, a technique popularized by Eddie Van Halen in the late 1970s and 1980s.

On his minute-long tour de force "Spanish Fly" Van Halen proved that the technique worked fine on an acoustic guitar.

John McLaughlin accused Di Meola of minimizing his American influences and "playing cultural hopscotch" in the track "Egyptian Danza" from the Casino album.

[98] Irish guitar hero and former Thin Lizzy member Gary Moore admired Di Meola, but declared the following in a 1983 interview to Music U.K. magazine: Everything he does is academic, really.

[105] Al Di Meola has been inducted for Guitar Player's "Gallery Of The Greats" by winning 5 times in one or more categories of the magazine's Annual Readers Poll.

He was featured alongside other rock and jazz luminaries, such as Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Marty Friedman, Allan Holdsworth, Frank Gambale and others.

[107][108] Al Di Meola, along with former bandmates Return to Forever, received in 2008 the BBC Jazz "Lifetime Achievement Award" by Beatles producer George Martin.

Other notable omissions included Peter Frampton, Neal Schon, Gary Moore, Joe Bonamassa, Guthrie Govan and Eric Gales.