On Across the Universe, jazz guitarist Al Di Meola follows the Fabs’ catalog down a long and winding instrumental road from “Till There Was You” to what he calls “Golden Slumber’s Medley.”

Not in chronological order and weirdly not including the title track, Across the Universe is the second such exploration for Di Meola following 2013’s All Your Life (A Tribute to the Beatles).

While this is obviously first and foremost a guitar record, Di Meola outs himself as an impeccable percussionist, perfectly capturing Ringo Starr’s late-period style on tracks such as “Here Comes the Sun” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” and by adding tabla and other exotica to “Norwegian Wood” and “Till There Was You.”

The album is full of surprising detours as Di Meola uses the melodies – it often sounds as if he’s sampling bits of the original recordings – as off ramps to far-out excursions that are often inspired and occasionally not.

He tacks the intro to “I’m So Tired” on to “Mother Nature’s Son;” takes “Julia” to Italy and Spain as accordion and flamenco guitar dance around John Lennon’s ode to his mother; and adds horns – bad move – to “I’ll Follow the Sun,” which bears almost no resemblance to “I’ll Follow the Sun.”

Despite some padding – 45 seconds of “Octopus’s Garden” with a young child singing; a ramshackle “Hey Jude” – Di Meola’s pulled off a minor miracle in making a Beatles tribute Beatles fans can enjoy and a jazz album the un-hip can dig like a pony.