Three fusion legends walk into a jazz festival and forget their egos at the door.
Guitarist Al di Meola, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, and bassist Stanley Clarke, all of whom recorded numerous albums as leaders during the 1970s and 1980s, join forces for this 1994 concert in Montreux. Each musician's compositions are featured in this mostly acoustic performance, though charts were necessary to help them find their way through unfamiliar pieces. There is a noticeable lack of ego apparent on-stage, with no one player trying to steal the spotlight. For his solo feature, "Eulogy to Oscar Romero," Ponty incorporates the use of a digital delay to accompany himself, while Clarke's and di Meola's solo performances are more in the context of the concert. CD The Rite of Strings, which was recorded the following year.
Direction
Unobtrusive cameras let the music breathe—rare for concert films
Editing
Cuts follow musical conversation, not fake drama
Sound
Acoustic purity with Ponty's digital delay as the only cheat
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
These three had never performed as a trio before this 1994 Montreux set; the chemistry was immediate enough to spawn a studio album and tour.
Romero was an archbishop assassinated in El Salvador in 1980; Ponty's eulogy transforms political martyrdom into wordless grief, then transcendence.
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