ABRAXAS

PLEASE SIGN MY GUEST BOOK

	Singing Winds, Crying Beasts
	Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen
	Oye Como Va
	Incident At Neshabur
	Se A Cabo
	Mother's Daughter
	Samba Pa Ti
	Hope You're Feeling Better
	El Nicoya
	*Bonus Tracks on the Expanded Edition, Live From The Royal Albert Hall; *Se A Cabo, *Toussaint L'Overture, *Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen

	Carlos Santana, Lead Guitar and Vocal
	Gregg Rolie, Keyboard and Vocal
	Dave Brown, Bass Guitar
	Mike Shrieve, Drums
	Jose "Chepito" Areas, Timbales and Conga
	Mike Carabello, Conga

REVIEW

Deservedly, Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen, Oye Como Va and Samba Pa Ti get the airplay from DJs and ink from rock critics. However, one of the most profound statements Santana, as a group, has ever made is Incident at Neshabur.

About a minute into the piece Rolie delivers a compelling solo on his Hammond B3 as the percussionists, Shrieve, Carabello and Areas set a furious pace. Shrieve really works his high-hat during Rolie’s solo. Next up is Carlos whose solo continues for a while at the same pace.  He presents something new to Santana fans... a jazz improvisational style solo. He climbs and meanders before spiraling down to a slow romantic tempo. The slow segment of Incident at Neshabur imparts some of Carlos’s most elegant work. The sustained notes alone must be counted among the most beautiful in the history of electric guitar.  

Abraxas Poster

Interestingly, Incident at Neshabur was originally recorded during the Santana I sessions at, Pacific High Studios, but held and released on Abraxas. Rolie says, "Incident at Neshabur was one of my favorite things. We did time changes, colors, and things that musically were very sophisticated. It was a perfect combination of Horace Silver and Big Black, with Aretha Franklin singing that Burt Bacharach song, ‘This Guy’s In Love With You’ we’d combine things we had a passion for."

On the multi-media CD-ROM, A History of Santana: the River of Color and Sound, published by the Graphix Zone, in 1996, Carlos explains that the inspiration for Samba Pa Ti came to him while in New York City. There was a man outside his window who was wrestling with himself over which to put into his mouth, the bottle of booze in his back pocket or the saxophone he was holding. Samba Pa Ti first came to Carlos as a poem. He put music to the poem, and it became a Santana instrumental classic. Carlos states that women from all over the world have shared with him that they got pregnant to Samba Pa Ti.

Abraxas was well received, the critics and the fans loved it. Released in October of 1970, it rose to the number one spot on the Billboard charts where it remained for six weeks. It was one of the best selling albums of 1971 and was on the Billboard chart for a total 88 weeks. Many consider Abraxas as Santana’s crowning achievement.

Gregg Rolie shares the following. "We took a little more time and went after a better sound quality on this album. "Incident at Neshabur" was recorded for the first album, but Fred Catero mixed it to sound like it was recorded at the same time as the rest of "Abraxas". I sang "Black Magic Woman" one time through with no overdubs. While Playing "Samba Pa Ti", Carlos played so hard that his earphones came off. He continued on, even after he couldn’t really hear the rest of the music anymore. Amazing! This is still my favorite album."  

Although there was much more music ahead for Santana the band and Carlos, on solo projects, for Santana as a group, Abraxas was their masterpiece. Five Stars. GG

This page best viewed at 800 x 600 pixels
This site is optimized for Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher

Contact Information

Electronic mail

Webmaster: selaznog@netzero.com