On New Year’s Eve 1971, a 17-year-old Al Di Meola walked offstage after playing the gig of his young life with jazz pianist Barry Miles. A tape of the performance eventually landed in the hands of Chick Corea — and by 1974, Di Meola was performing in Corea’s band, Return to Forever, becoming famous with lines played on his now iconic 1971 Gibson Les Paul Custom electric.
It was a dramatic turn for the future fusion star. But there was one detail about that night he never told Corea, with whom he would spend the next three years. Di Meola may have played a blinder — but mentally he was in another universe.
The reason? His friend Mike Buyukas gave him the trip of his life as ’71 turned into ’72.
“Mike gave me a tab of acid, I swear to God. I’m really green at the time,” Di Meola told Guitar Player in 2024. “I said to Mike, ‘What is that?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, you’re going to love it! Don’t worry — the Beatles take this stuff.’
“So I wound up taking a tab of acid before the gig with Barry Miles, and I’m telling you, I was on a trip on that stage. I was everywhere in the world, just totally tripping out. I don’t remember anything I played, but when I heard it back, it was fucking awesome!
“I mean, it was lines that Allan Holdsworth would’ve loved to have played. And I don’t know how I played them.”
Di Meola looked up to Buyukas, who was seven years older. The two bonded over music, and Buyukas became a gateway to artists who would shape the young guitarist’s virtuosic, genre-blending sound.
“Mike and I used to sit in his living room and listen to new music, and that’s when I first heard Chick’s A.R.C. record” — Corea’s 1971 trio album with bass guitarist Dave Holland and drummer Barry Altschul — “and then the early Return to Forever with Airto Moreira and Flora Purim.
A few years later, while studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Di Meola saw Return to Forever live.
“Earl Klugh was playing guitar with them,” he recalls. “That was a short-lived interim period after Bill Connors had left the group.”
After the show, he called Buyukas and casually said something that would change everything.
“I just offhandedly said, ‘God, I’d love to play with that band.’”
Without prompting, Buyukas transferred the New Year’s Eve recording from reel-to-reel to cassette and took it into New York to track down Corea’s management.
“He just bugged the hell out of them until they would listen to it,” Di Meola says. “And that’s how I got the call from Chick saying they were knocked out by what they heard and that they’d love for me to join the band.”
“I don’t remember doing a tryout; I just remember joining,” he adds. “They called and said, ‘We need you to come to New York… right now!’ I was in a state of shock. Like, Holy shit — what do I do? So I packed, and in 10 minutes I was out the door.”
His debut gig a few days later was a small one — at New York’s celebrated Carnegie Hall.
Convincing his parents proved harder.
“My father’s sitting at the table with his white T-shirt on, looking at the paper. He puts it down and says, ‘What do you mean you’re playing Carnegie Hall? Get the hell out of here! You’re not playing Carnegie Hall. Stop it now!’
My father’s sitting at the table with his white T-shirt on, looking at the paper. He puts it down and says, ‘What do you mean you’re playing Carnegie Hall?’”
— Al Di Meola
“This went on for an hour.”
Eventually Di Meola decided to bring them along.
“We get picked up by a limo, and my father gives his whole spiel on the way to Carnegie Hall. They’re in shock — they can’t believe this is happening.
“And my father says, ‘You know, I always said the way to get to Carnegie Hall is practice, practice, practice.’
“And I said to myself, Uh-uh. It’s acid, acid, acid.
“But I don’t recommend doing this, and I never did it again. But on that one night with Barry Miles, it worked for me. Oh my God! It was a great trip.”
