Santana: Caravanserai - 1972
After three ground-breaking albums of red hot fusion of latin salsa rhythms and rock electric guitar, Santana changed their line-up slightly and also their style, slightly, releasing this now classic album of extended jazzy, stream of consciousness largely instrumental workouts.
Yes, the trademark percussion is still there, particularly on frenetic cuts like La Fuente Del Ritmo, but much of the material is quite trippy, meandering but infectious journeying into slowed-down jazzy guitar sounds, freaky keyboards, man, and intoxicating rhythms, such on the captivating closer, Every Step Of The Way. It is almost classical in its powerful, dramatic execution, full of surging keyboard riffs, wonderful Carlos Santana guitar and frantic percussion.
There are only three tracks with vocals, the evocative Stone Flower, the psychedelic All The Love Of The Universe and Just In Time To See The Sun. The album had no hit singles and, listening to it, you feel that sense of intense seriousness. I remember at school when this came out, I was fourteen at the time. There was one boy who carried this album around under his arm. Looking back, that was a remarkably mature choice for a fourteen year-old.
The album is full of musical complexity but is utterly uncommercial. After their triumphs at Woodstock in the late sixties, the release of this started a downturn in Santana's popularity. They became a band for the discerning members of the cognoscenti for a while, until a renaissance in the late seventies with their cover of The Zombies' She's Not There and a further one in the late nineties with Supernatural. That said, listen to this a few times and it starts to get into your bloodstream. Its pulsating rhythms, improvisation and sheer musical adventurousness have gained it considerable critical kudos in subsequent years.
