Search - Carlos Santana :: Caravanserai

The musical orchid of its era

bukhtan | Chicago, Illinois, USA | 03/22/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What a window onto the world when the LP of this music came out! As rock music eltonjohn'ed down, many of us were looking for a way out of the silliness and inconsequentiality of Anglo-American pop music. Santana was an open door: their music was popular, enough so to get onto AM radio in a big way ("Oye como va" would have gotten old, if it hadn't been Santana) and yet it suggested depth and freedom of form that wasn't present in even the furthest-out "prog rock". Those of us who were guitargod crazy were of course onto Carlos Santana, and I believe that he still stands, with his best work, as the greatest lyricist of the electric guitar, outside of jazz.

Remember that this was before the great waves of Latin migration into the United States, so this sound was quite exotic to the ears of most of America. Moreover, cultures that aim at conformity and homogeneity, as America did at that time, tend to objectify "the other", negatively or positively. Some people reacted to the Latin nature of the music with slurs, some with the idea that this was a hot-blooded, "get dirty" kind of music. This was a gross, mindless response to the first three Santana records, fine in their own right, of course, but imagine what simple heads made of this band when it recorded, and performed, this relentlessly probing, spiritual music. "Boring".

But not for some of us. And unlike some of the stuff that came out in this period that seemed interesting to those of us who were looking for something more, this has stayed interesting. I don't think it was terrible profitable for Carlos and his colleagues, though. After the LP's "Welcome" and "Borboletta", also interesting but not of the perfection of Caravanserai, Santana came out with disappointing "Amigos", a paint-by-numbers affair that simultaneously pandered to disco fever and the the whitebread America notion of the simple Latin.

Well, you do have to make enough money to live on ..."

Song for the Wind

KrizBiz | 12/08/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The guitar solo on Song for the Wind by itself is probably one of the greatest solos of rock/fusion/jazz guitar. His phrasing is along the lines of the great jazz pianist Bill Evans. Just listen to the demo on this site and you'll see what I mean -- the actual solo is considerably longer but this gives a good taste of the album. I owned it in 1973 and just re-purchased and it has held up greatly with time."

Bliss

Tater | 03/28/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Perfect background music for.... so many things I probably shouldn't mention here! Anyways, this is definately Santana's best, buy it, download it, somehow aquire it, and enjoy it. And as the other reviews note, if you like the new Santana pop stuff, don't bother with this. It's not even in the same genre."