Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, Paco De Lucia – Saturday Night In San Francisco / Impex Records

There is probably no one who is passionate about guitar music who does not know the legendary and widely re-released album "Friday Night in San Francisoco". Three guitar virtuosos play live and with stunning acoustic qualities.

What hardly anyone knows: There were two more concerts with the same line-up on the following Saturday, which were also recorded, but where an almost completely different set was played. Still in 1980 a master was created from

the two concerts with countless cuts, but it was never released.

It was Al Di Meola's management that later remembered that this tape still existed. But already after the first research, disappointment set in. The master had not been stored well and was actually unfit for use. But Abey Fonn, the producer

of Impex Records from the USA, was not discouraged by this. What could be heard on the tapes was simply too good despite all obstacles. One thing was immediately clear: "Saturday Night" was even better than the legendary Friday.

Instead of using the poorly stored master, Fonn went back to the analog 16-track recordings of the actual concerts for the release. These weren't in great shape either, but could be reprocessed at Skywalker Sound in Marine County, California.

Then the task was to create a mix from the two concerts again. For this, Katsu Naito & Roy Hendrickson were hired. The former had already done the cuts for "Friday Night in San Francisco" and still knew quite well what he had paid attention

to more than 40 years ago. Artistically, the assessment of Al di Meola was decisive. The perfectionist simply doesn't like mistakes, while John McLaughlin sees them more as part of the live atmosphere.

The new mix was sent to Bernie Grundman, who made two different lacquer cuts. Once with transistor technology and once with tube technology. Since for the Impex production up to this point they had already decided to go the purely analog

route, it is little surprise that the tube version sounded "more right".

The LP cover absolutely had to be purple at Al di Meola's request. The manual with liner notes by Charles L. Grenade contains previously unpublished photos.

The pressing of the 180 gram LP with 33.1/3 rpm was done by RTI in Los Angeles.

A side note: Only the Impex version of this release was made in pure analog and came to mastering without any intermediate digitizing. They insisted on absolute quality and therefore cut with a lot of dynamics. The second side of the LP therefore

contains only two tracks.

Title

Side A

1. Bill Graham Introduction

2. Splendido Sundance

3. One Word

4. Trilogy Suite

5. Monasterio de Sal

Side B

1. El Pañuelo

2. Meeting Of The Spirits