I vaguely recall hearing a lot about Al Di Meola many years ago. Always with great praise and fascination. I haven’t kept up with that scene.
I do know some people will fire or distance themselves from a clear professional if they think that professional is better than they (the Star performer) are, or competing for the same audience. Sometimes others in the entourage will whisper negative things in the Star performer’s ears.
I’ve heard that’s what happened with Elton John and Neil Sadaka. Elton brought Neil out of retirement for a short while in the early 1980’s. Elton’s people thought Neil was getting more applause at certain performances than Elton was then. Suddenly, Neil was off the schedule and back on his own. They didn’t speak for many years, then cleared the matter up.
Al was hired to play in Return To Forever out of the Berklee College of Music. They made him stick around and practice after sessions and concerts were over in order to get him up to the “standards of the band” and fired him, along with Lenny White, after they recorded Romantic Warrior. Stanley Clarke wanted to keep the band together but Chick was the boss.
Al went on to win just about every and any award you could imagine for his guitar work. His album Elegant Gypsy is one of my all-time favorites and critics call Friday Night in San Francisco one of the best acoustic albums ever recorded.
If you haven’t heard his solo work, along with the solo albums by Stanley Clarke and Lenny White, you are missing out on some masterpieces.