Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin + Paco De Luca – Friday Night In San Francisco 33RPM Vinyl

Everything you’ve loved about this iconic, reference-defining recording is laid bare, reproduced with stunning fidelity and nuance. Featuring all-analog mastering byChris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering and an exclusive foil-stamped jacket for this very special release. This Di Meola-McLaughlin-De Lucia classic could only come from the LP fetishists at Impex Records.

Listen as Impex’s 180-gram vinyl, spinning at 33 revolutions per minute, reveals everything to your hungry, deep-listening ears. Ready to redefine definitive again.

Friday Night In San Francisco is a 1981 live album by Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia. It was described by jazz author and critic Walter Kolosky as “a musical event that could be compared to the Benny Goodman Band’s performance at Carnegie Hall in 1938…[it] may be considered the most influential of all live acoustic guitar albums. All the tracks except “Guardian Angel” were recorded live at The Warfield Theatre on December 5, 1980 in San Francisco.

This debut recording on Columbia Records became a landmark recording that surpassed the two million mark in sales. The three virtuosos in the Trio toured together from 1980 through 1983.

Paco de Lucia was a Spanish flamenco guitarist, composer and producer. A leading proponent of the New Flamenco style, he helped legitimize flamenco among the establishment in Spain, and was one of the first flamenco guitarists to have successfully crossed over into other genres of music such as classical and jazz. De Lucia was noted for his fast and fluent finger style runs. His collaborations with guitarists John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola saw him gain wider popularity outside his native Spain.

Al Di Meola is an acclaimed jazz fusion and Latin jazz guitarist, composer, and record producer. With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date. Albums such as Friday Night In San Francisco have earned him both artistic and commercial success with a solid fan base throughout the world. A prolific composer and prodigious six-string talent, Di Meola has amassed over 20 albums as a leader while collaborating on a dozen or so others.

John McLaughlin is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer. His music includes many genres of jazz and rock, which he coupled with an interest in Indian classical music to become one of the pioneering figures in fusion. In 2010, guitarist Jeff Beck called him “the best guitarist alive.” In 2003, McLaughlin was ranked 49th in Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” After contributing to several key British groups of the early sixties and making his first solo record, he moved to the U.S. where he played with Tony Williams’ group Lifetime and then with Miles Davis on his landmark electric-jazz fusion albums: In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew, A Tribute To Jack Johnson and On The Corner.