I saw him do this work w/ the L.A. Philh. orchestra, many years ago, and liked it very much. Haven't heard it live since, so it's nice to see / hear this here on You Tube.
Long time fan of John McLaughlin, especially his acoustic guitar work. My fancy is for his jazz-fusion flavored work like Belo Horizonte and Music Spoken Here. As much as I know his playing is stellar here and the compositions are tremendous and the orchestration fabulous, I just feel the intimacy and immediacy of his playing is not properly framed in this context. Unfortunately I'm unable to connect viscerally with the orchestration, the themes or the acoustics. It all just sounds too European, not in a good way, because I love "European", but it seems trite here. Perhaps the engineering isn't capturing the full sonic force of John and the orchestra. I bought it when it was originally released and wanted very much to love it, but it never caught hold of me.
As I said in my other comment, it certainly "caught hold of me" when I saw him perform it w/ the L.A. Philh. orchestra, so many years ago. I love this work, and was pleased the L.A. Philh. programmed it; I wish theyd do it again....it'd be nice if Maestro Dudamel would feature it during an upcoming Hollywood Bowl summer performance.
It was good, John has an amazing career and his picking guitar skills are great. His wk with Aldimeola and Paci de Lucia is more intune than thisnin.my humble opinion. Guitar sound too dirty, phrases all over the place and no much structure for a classical guitar concerto and orchestra. Nonetheless, John beyond the norn work is highly admirable.
