Destined to Live Forever...
I remembered enjoying Illuminations (from which much of this material was culled) as a much younger man. Live forever in your local used CD store that is. Clearly that music was meant for younger minds. At 50 the Alice Coltrane/Santana tracks are so over-produced and full of wonderous harp glissandos that it's hard to take this seriously. The musicianship is definitely superb. Angel of Light is a standout track but overall, I find this CD sort of embarrassing. Much of it is a sonic equivalent of drinking from a bottle of Karo corn syrup. Yuk!.
Lovely Album
I really admire the way that Bill Laswell has put this together. The album pulls together the best tracks from two Carlos Santana joint ventures with John McLaughlin (1973) and Alice Coltrane (1974).
The album with Coltrane (Illuminations) received poor reviews when it came out, so I didn't buy the album. The tracks here sound beautiful. I should have known that most rock critics are basically confused adolescents.
I did buy the album with McLaughlin in 1973 (Love Devotion Surrender). Birds of Fire and Caravanserai were two of my all time favorite albums. However the combination of the Mahavishnu Orcestra and the Santana Band seemed a little intense on that album, it seemed basically a jam album with a little too much competitive soloing.
However, mixed with the more mellow Illuminations tracks the new combined album is more balanced and makes more sense. The standard of musicianship is incredible. They don't make guitar players like these guys anymore!
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The Art of Self-Realization
Although I tend to lean more towards one than the other, I do understand the reasoning behind both reviews and at this juncture, I think it would be safe to say, you either like this stuff or you don't. One seriously must take the comments given by the One-Star reviewer and those of the Four-Star reviewer and split the differences. I do disagree with one prevailing attitude here, and that is that I believe the Laswell treatment here is minimalism at best. If you are thoroughly familiar with the originals, you won't blame Bill for the lush and yes, sometimes overpopulous strings. All Bill contributed was subliminal filler on this recording, believe me.
Let's take a step back together and look at the "history". After Woodstock, and three "band" albums, the cohesive Santana Band was falling apart. Some blame Carlos, others Shon and Rolie, but the pointed fact remains, they had all begun to tire of each other and were reaching for other creativities. Carlos went on a binge "tour" with the great Buddy Miles, and then discovered The Self Realization Fellowship. I myself was reading The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda at the very same time that Caravanserai came out. Somehow, Carlos had managed to convince Neil and Greg to hang in there a moment longer before taking off on their Journey, and the result was inescapable to anyone interested in the same inner exploration that Santana brought to the table. Now at this time John McLaughlin was a co-convert with Carlos, as was Alice Coltrane. This set the stage for two projects that would raise the roof on "fusion" music of the period. One may call it self-indulgent ramblings, others speculative self-examination, but the bottom line here is folks, this was music of free expression, the musical equivalent of what Jack Kerouac had ultimately perfected in writing style, a free-form means of letting the soul speak without the conscious effort of obeying "stylistic rules". So if you don't like thinking "outside the box", you ain't gonna dig this, man! And that's alright.
Each of these musical ventures has something to offer the listener whether with or without the Laswell treatment. Personally, I like what Bill did with the music, and I find it refreshing that these two albums' best contents wound up here and I have two less but one more CD to have purchased while rebuilding my vinyl collection of Santana into digital form. I have literally everything Carlos has touched, and there is not one "period" of his music I dislike, though I am waiting for him to enter a new phase, and hoping that he is through with the Shaman-pop-artist promotions. Supernatural was a nice novelty. Shaman wore the novelty thin. I see Santana as a musical explorer, bringing his love of life and spirit into his art, much as those adored angels of his inspired a millennia of artisans and craftsmen throughout the ages. Santana, whether Devadip, Carlos, or "The Band", is a religious experience, a spiritual experience, a masterpiece-of-art experience. Everything he touches turns to gold, and so you may not exactly like something on this CD, but there will be something else on it that will just make you sit up and go "Wow, now THAT was worth the purchase alone!" That is IF you have an open mind and enjoy the best guitarist in the world.
So getting back to the point, the music on this project is nearly ALL original, with only some drone and an occasional apostrophe added by Bill's hand. And so the formula here is, if you don't like "self-indulgent" fusion then stay away and skip this Santana period entirely. I don't know how anyone can NOT like The Divine Life with it's beautiful chant, or the keys that haunt the rhythmic strokes of guitar and bass layed over a texture of two guitars making love to one another in A Love Supreme, or Alice's harp kissing Carlos' guitar while flying with the Angel of Air, or the gentle sweet sounds of Naima and Meditation, but I DO understand how someone can not be in the particular mood to grapple with the sometimes violent and tempestuous Angel of Sunlight, so try it on another day, say when love turns to lust, or when you need to purge yourself of a particularily bad thought. Beautiful Bliss always follows a storm, and this is no exception, the three part ending will soothe you, relax you, and calm every nerve.
Santana's fingers are a gift to humanity from the Divine Himself. Illuminations and Love Devotion Surrender were Santana's forgiveness of himself, for he had visited the face of the Divine. Together with Alice and John, he gave us a gift from that forgiveness, and that gift was his art on these recordings. And now Bill has not embellished them, he has accented them. Enjoy!
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Worth the price of two discs
The sound is much better, and the sequencing of the tunes really brings this into focus. I didn't think that there was anything one could do with this music to make it better, but it's now been done. Carlos teamed with Alice Coltrane and with John McLaughlin, not to mention a host of other greats, such as Jack DeJohnette(drums), Dave Holland(bass), Tom Coster(electric piano), Larry Young(organ), Billy Cobham(drums), Mike Shrieve(drums), etc.
Not For The Hard-Core Santana Fan!
Reconstruction and remixing Miles Davis is one thing but Santana fans tend to be more devoted and hard-core loyalists that prefer their Santana original. This was quite a risky move by Laswell. The result therefore, is somewhat predictable. Santana devotees are likely to snub this work, while the more casual listener will find a totally new listening experience here, which in truth, offers little in the way of a true Santana experience. Tracks 1-2-5-6 & 8 are extremely well done and retain some semblance of Santana's rich guitar playing. Tracks 3-4-7 & 9, on the other hand, are, as one reviewer aptly puts it, filled with overly lush string arrangements that take the listener from Santana's creative jazzy arrangements to more of a classical feel. Bad? Not really, but certainly awkward and at times even a little annoying. Overall, it's worth a listen, but for my money, I prefer the real deal.
You can see a complete list of all Carlos Santana discography, or go back to the Carlos Santana tabs
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