Round-table interviews with rockstars always carry a risk. You can make the intros. Dim the lights. But if the chemistry doesn’t fire, it can feel like forcing giant pandas to mate.
Fortunately, as pan-generational giants of US jazz, Al Di Meola and Julian Lage have long admired each other’s work, and while the 71-year-old Di Meola remains a New Jersey tough-guy with a palpable nostalgia for the old industry, offset by the 38-year-old Lage’s more abstract take on the craft and business, we’re soon off to the races.
