VIVA SANTANA!

For me Carlos Santana is the inventor of the exciting Latin-rock sound, I love the blend of his sensitive and fiery guitarwork, the powerful Hammond organ and the propulsive percussion (like conga's, timbales and bongo's) on his Seventies and Eighties albums. This 2- CD set is a perfect entrance to that wonderful sound, it contains 30 compositions including live tracks, unreleased songs and unreleased jams. My favorite era is his early work (first 3 albums) with an important role by Greg Rolie who added an extra dimension to the music with his Hammond B3 organ play and his very distinctive, a bit sultry vocals.

CD-1:The typical Latin atmosphere is great on songs like Guajira and Angel Negro: a Cuban/Puerto- Rican percussion touch with swinging piano, warm vocal harmonies in Spanish and Mariachi- like trumpet, added with howling guitar runs by senor Santana, goose bumps! In Jungle Strut future Journey guitarplayer Neal Schon delivers some blistering guitarwork. The Holy Trinity of Santana guitar, Hammond and percussion is great on the songs Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen, Jingo (super catchy conga beat) and Incident At Neshabur, what an exciting progressive blend of rock, blues and ethnic! On some short pieces you can enjoy solo percussion like Bambara and Abi Cama, I love it.

CD-2: In Dance Sister Dance it's 'Latin-rock-time', it rocks and swings with an awesome Santana guitar sound. In the 'classic' Europa he delivers his trademark, the sustain, it sounds so emotional in combination with his sensitive guitar runs, again goose bumps! In 1985 Santana had a monster hit with the Zombies cover She's Not There, he managed to change it in the typical Santana Latin-rock sound featuring swinging percussion and fiery electric guitar play (with some wah-wah). Other excellent moments are the compositions Evil Ways (a big hand for Greg Rolie on his Hammond organ), the swinging and cheerful Oyo Como Va (biting guitars and propulsive percussion) and the Woodstock version of Soul Sacrifice that lauched Carlos Santana his carreer, one of their finest moments all members showing their great spirit and skills.

THIS IS VERY EXCITING AND ADVENTUROUS MUSIC!!!