“I didn’t know if I could write being happy,” Al Di Meola says in a promotional video released in support of Opus . “I’ve always been in this artistic, kind-of down mood.” Well, that’s sure intriguing, and that happiness—Di Meola sees the album as nothing less than a creative rebirth, newly stressing his compositional skills over his guitar playing—is palpable. There are references, of course, to those places he’s long visited: tango, fusion jazz, immersive and contemplative acoustic virtuosity. But there is also a greater sense of exploration pouring off of these 11 performances. “Milonga Noctiva,” the opener, one of three tracks featuring Cuban pianist Kemuel Roig, blossoms orchestrally, dramatic percussive flourishes giving it a crackle; this track alone traverses a world within its eight minutes. “Notorious,” its creator says, was inspired somewhat by Led Zeppelin and while we hear more of Di Meola’s alma mater Return to Forever than anything Jimmy Page might conjure up, the fact that it could suggest both of those entities to different listeners qualifies it as more than a little fascinating. Featuring Moroccan master percussionist Rhani Krija, “Pomp” looks to the Middle East; the maestro’s guitar making us wonder if he’d consider taking up the oud at this late date. Di Meola’s playing on Opus , overall, is so utterly captivating that we might forget for a sec that it’s the writing he was hoping we’d pay attention to and, indeed, these pieces are all crafted in a most masterly way. But it’s the execution that brings them to life, and no one else would have done them justice as he does here.