Santana - Shape Shifter

[randyhersom]

Very much enjoying Shape Shifter. Recorded for Carlos's own indie label, with native american colorations meeting classic soaring guitar and rhythm tracks. I got a big kick out of hearing Santana top the charts with some very good commercial tracks, but I'll always love him more in this vein. The vocal track is quite fine and there are some ethereal voice effects on the title track also, but the guitar and rhythm are as glorious and inseperable as ever and featured more prominently that they have been in some time. (I really don't think of Carlos when I think of great guitar solos, because they really aren't solos.) Spotify has it so check it out on the cheap.

[Big Al]

Completely agree! I bought this sight unseen when it came out after having not bought anything by him recently. This is very reminiscent of THE SWING OF DELIGHT to these ears, and this too is delightful!

[jazzbo]

It's okay. Terribly compressed sound, that's my biggest beef, just doesn't sound right to me.

[felser]

Swing of Delight always seemed like much much less than the sum of its parts to me, played safe maybe because of the direct to disc technology. Was hoping for more of a pre-Amigos "classic" from the description in Randy's post. Nonetheless, look forward to hearing this, and it's by default got to be the best thing he's done in about 20 years anyways. Just going to be a matter of how good is the good.

[felser]

BTW, one sleeper CD that does invoke a little something of the feeling of early Santana in some places is "Abraxas Pool". 1997 Miramar release, the personnel is Gregg Rolie, Michael Shrieve, Neal Schon, Michael Carabello, Jose Chepito Areas, and Alphonso Johnson. I.E. Santana III without Santana himself (Schon was already in Santana at that point) and with Johnson on bass. I wouldn't pay the $20+ it's going for on Amazon, and it isn't gonna replace your early Santana albums, but if you come across it cheap, it's the best thing in a whole lot of years from the early-Santana/Journey pool of musicians. The other albums that are pretty underrated are the early 90's Santana albums on Polydor ("Milagro" and "Sacred Fire"), which don't have the compromises of his 80's Columbia albums (let alone the horrors of his Arista go-rillas) and which have some dignity to them.