Santana & Wayne Shorter - Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1988 (1988)

Se va terminando la semana y también nuestros aportes por ahora. Y para ir cerrando con moñito otra semana a puro disfrute y con muchas sorpresas, el Mago Alberto aporta éste maravilloso disquito en vivo. Creo que no requiere presentación, yo al menos no lo voy a hacer, si quieren más datos vean el video que acompaña éste post.

Artista: Santana & Wayne Shorter

Álbum: Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1988
Año: 1988
Género: Jazz rock / Rock fusión / Latin jazz
Duración: 124:11
Nacionalidad: Internacional

Lista de Temas:
Disc 1:
1. Spiritual
2. Peraza
3. Shhh
4. Incident at Neshabur
5. Elegant People
6. Percussion Solo (Performed by Armando Peraza & Jose Chepito Areas)
7. Goodness & Mercy
8. Sanctuary
Disc 2:
1. For Those Who Chant
2. Blues for Salvador
3. Fireball 2000
4. Drum Solo (Performed by Leon Ndugu Chancler)
5. Ballroom in the Sky
6. Once It's Gotcha
7. Mandela
8. Deeper, Dig Deeper
9. Europa

Alineación:
- Carlos Santana / guitar
- Wayne Shorter / saxophone
- Chester Thompson / keyboards
- Patrice Rushen / keyboards
- Alphonso Johnson / bass
- Armando Peraza / congas
- Jose Chepito Areas / timbales
- Leon "Ndugu" Chancler / drums

Hace ya bastante tiempo, Sandy nos había dejado varios de los discos de Santana en su serie dedicada al "Chicano rock". A pesar de que el tiempo pasó retomamos por un momento esa tesitura para presentar el siguiente trabajo que reúne a dos grandes.

Live at Montreux Jazz Festival is a live album by Carlos Santana and Wayne Shorter released on March 27, 2007 of the concert held on July 14, 1988 at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux (Switzerland).

Wikipedia

Aquí, las palabras del Mago Alberto presentando el disco, que es quien nos lo comparte siempre tan gentilmente.

Bombardeo de discos!!!
Cuando un músico llega a la cúspide de su carrera y cree estar a punto de tocar el arpa con San Pedro en percusión, es cuando debería dejar su instrumento y dedicarse a disfrutar de la familia, de sus nietos, de caminar las mañanas tranquilas, de sentarse a mirar el cielo, o de producir a otros músicos, pero hay otros que entran en la edad de "viejo choto" y es ahí cuando entra en un aura de impunidad, se tira un pedo en el subte a las 6 de la tarde, se cuela en la cola del Rapipago, no saca número en la carnicería y lo atienden igual, se sube primero al bondi sin importar la cola, y muchísimas situaciones más.
En el caso de Carlos Santana, luego de grabar albumes increíbles, de coquetear con cuanto género anduvo dando vuelta, de juntarse con músicos de la puta madre, termina como viejo choto grabando con Maná y Diego Torres. De ahí, aquello de la impunidad, pero bueno... a todos nos llega.
Ahora bien, dentro de la amplísima discografía de Carlitos, encontramos reuniones y albumes como este en cuestión, en colaboración con Wayne Shorter, reunión que dejó plasmada en su presentación en el famosisimo Festival de Jazz de Montreaux, y siempre que uno se pone a investigar un poco llega a la conclusión de que la discografía Santanesca parece no tener fin y siempre hay un registro nuevo u olvidado, tal es el caso de que en este 2016 volvió a juntar a la banda setentera para grabar Santana IV (como si se le hubiera quedado colgado en el tintero) y el resultado es por demás satisfactorio.
Creo que no hay mucho para agregar sobre Carlos y menos sobre Shorter, asi que lo único que les comento es que este registro es de una calidad impresionante, sonido, arreglos, y ni hablar de los músicos adicionales. Asi que antes de que Carlos nos regale algún registro con Agapornis, disfrutemos de lo que sucedió alli por 1988 en este festival.

Mago Alberto

Cabezonas y cabezones, esto fue todo por ésta semana al menos por mi parte, espero que pasen un buen fin de semana con mucha música. Aquí les dejo algunos otros comentarios ahora en inglés.

The seeds for the Carlos Santana & Wayne Shorter Band were likely planted when both appeared on This Is This, the 1986 swan song by Shorter’s band Weather Report. Yet the saxophonist left the group midway through that album’s recording sessions, leaving co-founding keyboardist Joe Zawinul little choice but to disband Weather Report after the release of perhaps the weakest effort in its 15-year catalog.
A two-CD and DVD package, Live at the 1988 Montreux Jazz Festival fares about as well as This Is This, similarly because of a lack of chemistry rather than lack of talent. Guitarist Santana recruited a percussionist from the late-’80s version of his self-titled band, conga master Armando Peraza, plus original bandmember Jose Chepito Areas on timbales. Both burn through the Santana classic “Incident at Neshabur.” The other highlight of disc one is Shorter’s Weather Report staple, “Elegant People.” The saxophonist plays with fire over the funky cushion of Santana’s bassist, Alphonso Johnson, a former Weather Report member.
Maybe Shorter didn’t assert himself enough in the personnel process, since only Johnson and keyboardist Patrice Rushen were involved with his previous catalog. Santana keyboardist Chester Thompson hits a synthesized snooze button on “Goodness & Mercy,” and the guitarist can’t quite get in sync with former Santana drummer Leon “Ndugu” Chancler during the guitar-and-drums interplay on “Sanctuary” (something more evident on the DVD than CD).
Santana’s penchant for sustained single notes permeates disc two, from the introductory ballad “For Those Who Chant” to the predictable closer, “Europa.” Only the preceding encore, “Deeper, Dig Deeper,” hints at the breakneck fire that defines most live Santana shows, and only the shimmering “Fireball 2000” nears the rare, worldly air of Weather Report concerts.
Perhaps both Santana and Shorter felt they had something to prove in 1988. Santana’s first three albums had defined the previously non-existent genre of Latin rock, and subsequent strong releases helped to shape the sound of the 1970s. But Santana transitioned awkwardly into the 1980s, as the band worked harder during epic live shows to overcome weaker material. The 1988 boxed set, Viva Santana!, signaled the transition toward commercial material that earned the guitarist multiple Grammys for his 1999 album Supernatural.
Shorter was three years removed from the fusion juggernaut Weather Report, and simultaneously trying to chart his now-thriving solo career and walk out of Zawinul’s shadow. Playing a similar second fiddle to Santana didn’t help. Live at the 1988 Montreux Jazz Festival is an admirable live performance that nonetheless pales in comparison to expectations set by the other bands of Santana and Shorter. It could’ve stayed in the vault.

Bill Meredith

This two-disc set captures the pairing of Latin rock figurehead Carlos Santana with post bop legend Wayne Shorter at the 1988 Montreux Jazz Festival. As one might expect, the concert covers a lot of stylistic ground, including jazz, Latin, blues, rock, and elements of African and Indian music. With the help of a top-drawer backing band, Santana and Shorter stretch out liberally, indulging their mutual penchant for exploratory soloing driven by an almost spiritual searching. The set is a must for fans of either artist, but is pleasurable listening for almost anyone interested in post-1960s rock and jazz.

AllMusic

Maybe it’s apocryphal, but the genesis of this much-talked-about but little-seen concert is said to stem from a conversation in which Santana asked Shorter’s permission to start a rumour that the two legends were going to form a band together. That dynamic speaks volumes: the earnestly jazz-loving rocker respectfully currying favour with one of jazz’s greatest and most esteemed living practitioners, a bona-fide saxophone legend who cut his teeth in Art Blakey’s hard-bop hot-house before going on to energise Miles Davis’ classic mid-‘60s quartet, and then co-found the quintessential ‘70s funk-fusion super group, Weather Report. What’s more, it’s a relationship that translates directly onto the screen.
Sure, Santana’s leading the band, making the announcements, seems to be calling the shots, but as soon as Shorter raises his horn to his lips, all eyes are on him; you can pretty much feel the admiration and awe oozing out of the rest of the band. And it’s unsurprising. Shorter is a heavy dude. It’s not just his history: he prowls the stage with a kind of heavy-lidded menace, raking rough and insistent solos out of his soul. There’s no doubting his authenticity.
It has to be said, too, that Santana’s not exactly a flimsy pop star. Almost 20 years after setting the stage on fire at Woodstock, this film finds him still a master of the incendiary guitar solo, with a yearning, deeply spiritual tone that remains unmistakably his own while there’s something hugely reassuring and entertaining about his ability to enter into a private world of ecstatic bliss – lips pursed, eyes screwed tight, head thrown back in Dionysian abandon – at the drop of a plectrum, literally seconds into any solo he takes. Bring these two musical firebrands together and you should probably be able to expect fireworks.
All of which makes the reality of this show just a tiny bit disappointing. Now, don’t get me wrong, it has its moments. “Incident at Neshabur” is prime Santana, little diminished since first revealed on 1969’s Abraxas. And “Elegant People” is one of Shorter’s most enduring compositions—an epic funk masterpiece here benefiting from the agile bass of Alphonso Johnson—the very same bassist who first nailed the slippery changes when the tune appeared on Weather Report’s 1976 album Black Market. Moreover, there’s some astonishing musicianship throughout the entire show: Patrice Rushen contributes some lengthy, dizzying piano solos and almost every tune is enlivened by the percussive barrage of Leon ‘Ndugu’ Chancler on drum kit, Jose Chepitos Areas on timbales and the conga playing of the legendary Armando Peraza – a musician whose first American gigs were with Charlie Parker in ‘50s New York and whom Santana rightly summarises in a brief interview as playing percussion “on a Coltrane level.”
And yet, there’s one major thing wrong with the whole affair: it’s got the ‘80s written all over it. I’m not just talking about the superficial crimes against fashion: Santana’s leather pants and Shorter’s baggy pastel linen suit with sleeves hitched to the forearm – the two of them coming across like the jazz world’s very own Crocket and Tubbs; or Patrice Rushen’s preposterous Latoya Jackson meets the Bangles get-up; or even Jose Chepitos Areas almost unbelievable mega-afro, a voluminous hair-hat that seems to move almost completely independently of the rest of his body like a disobedient dog sitting on top of his head. No, these little peccadilloes are rather amusing in their own way.
I’m talking about something far more damaging bequeathed to us by that most plastic of decades: I’m talking about the effect on the music itself. Almost every tune is in some way ruined by a soulless, artificial synth-preset – lashings of plastic strings or unconvincing horn stabs that turn what could have been gritty jams into saccharine drive-time, coffee-table radio fodder, slickly over-produced, so-tight-it squeaks pastel niceties. To hear these stellar musicians cranking out such sanitised fare, dragged down by the whimsy of historical accident, is almost enough to make a grown man cry.
In a just and loving universe, this gig would have taken place 20 years earlier when these guys were allowed to sweat. Instead, we get this sojourn in a tasteless wilderness. It’s probably best to just put it behind us and move on to something more nourishing – like, I don’t know, Poptarts, or something.

Daniel Spicer

It began almost as a lark when Carlos Santana encountered his longtime friend and hero Wayne Shorter on the concert trail in Atlanta, GA, in 1987, Carlos said, "Let's start a rumor that we're putting a band together.". Wayne's eyes got bigger and brighter as he smiled and then responded: "Yeah, Carlos, let's start a rumor.".
A few months later the Carlos Santana / Wayne Shorter Band performed its debut concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco, the beginning of a 26-concert tour throughout the US and Europe. The performance of this magnificent band was recorded at Montreux, Switzerland, on July 14, 1988, and includes interviews with Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter and festival creator Claude Nobs.
That were all the words printed at the DVD package. With that sort of brief description I can sense that this is just a project that represented collaboration between two talented musicians: Carlos Santana (guitar) and Wayne Shorter (saxophone). I have heard quite often Wayne Shorter name in jazz arena but I have never paid attention on what kind of albums he has ever produced nor the albums where he contributed. But from this collaboration live performance DVD I can see from my own eyes that Wayne Shorter is a great musician in sax as well as clarinet.
If you are a bit like into jazz music, you may consider this DVD for your collection. First, you can get the music that this DVD delivers: a balanced marriage of latin rock guitar style and music where Santana has usually composed and jazz music. The result is an excellent performance with nice music. The styles of music they play are different from one track to another. There are tracks with upbeat tempo as well as those with mellow. Example of excellent upbeat track is "Elegant People" where the music gives Wayne Shorter's improvisation of music using his saxophone, combined nicely with percussion, two keyboards and drums. Chester Thompson and Patrice Rushen are also great keyboard players and seem to be one of the attraction points of this DVD package.
There are many attractions throughout the performance of this band where not only Carlos Santana plays stunning guitar solo, but also the wonderful solo of keyboard as well as drums. The one I enjoy most is when Chester Thompson plays keyboard solo during Mandela.
Overall, this is an excellent addition to any prog music DVD especially for those who favor jazz music. As far as live performance DVD, this is an excellent one because the band plays the music in energetic way.

Gatot Widayanto

Al disco lo encuentran donde siempre, y no olviden de agradecer al Mago por semejante trabajo.