Santana Abraxas

“Der Vogel kämpft sich aus dem Ei. Das Ei ist die Welt. Wer geboren werden will, muss eine Welt zerstören. Der Vogel fliegt zu Gott. Der Gott heisst Abraxas.”

– from Demian by Herman Hesse

Yes, I’m still here, excuse me for not posting anything for awhile — thanks for checking in, and thank you for your prompting…

I’ve got ten pieces in the queue, in various stages of completion. The internet was down at my apartment for almost a week (that’s worth a post right there!), and that sort of knocked me full force into this

oh, ferfuckssakes, hahaha, I can’t even type it

this big, fictional thing I’m trying to write

From time to time I plan to post full on, musicianly reviews of albums. Here’s the first; I wrote it a few years back,  it feels a little stilted to me now… I’ll give it a slap or two now and then: The main thing is, if you don’t know this record, check it out! Masterpiece!

ABRAXAS SANTANA
Carlos Santana, guitars, vox   Gregg Rolie, keys, lead vox   Dave Brown, bass
Mike Shrieve, drums   Jose Areas, timbales y congas    Mike Carabello, congas
Colombia PC 30130
Recorded Summer 1970
Released October 1970
(this review written listening to the Sony/ Colombia Legacy CK 65490 reissue on 24 bit
remastered cd)

Music  is  the

closest  thing

most  of  us

have  to  a

time  machine,

and hearing this remarkable record again transported me back –whew — 37 years! — all the way to 1971 in Bogotá, Colombia.

As Santana is still with us, and sold I think 19 gazillion units of that CD that had Rob Thomas on it, it’s hardly news that this man and the band that takes his name have had a huge impact on modern popular music.
What some of you may not realize, though, is that in addition to exposing another generation of  North Americans to some of the glories of “Latin” music, Santana had a huge galvanizing affect on South American audiences. The pollination went both ways. For U.S. audiences, hearing exotic Afro-Cuban and other rhythms in the familiar context of “rock band” was shockingly refreshing. Similarly, for those of us whose ears were accustomed to these sounds, hearing “rock music” from this Hispanic perspective was thrilling. I saw Woodstock probably 30 times as a young teen in Colombia and Ecuador. The house was always packed, and Santana’s performance of “Soul Sacrifice” in that movie invariably brought us all, dancing, to our feet.

Supreme nerd revelation: a friend and I spent weeks recreating Santana on stage at Woodstock down to the tiniest detail in plasticene — PA towers and all. Crazy, ese.

Reviewing “Abraxas,” then, is a highly evocative privilege for me.

With the first tune, “Singing Winds, Crying Beasts,” the first sound we hear is a sweep of the harp inside a grand piano that tells us this is no ordinary rock album. After some McCoy Tynerish chords and some nice atmospheric playing all around, the rhythm section introduces a wonderful hypnotic groove, and were treated to a long, patiently –developed solo from Greg Rolie on Wurlitzer…and we fade out! The lead guitarist and namesake of the band has confined himself to a few notes here and there to establish a mood. Whatta a guy.

“Black Magic Woman/ Gypsy Queen” is so famous that I feel a little silly even mentioning it. This medley of tunes does reveal more of Carlos’ sensibility, however, as we are exposed to Peter Green and Gabor Szabo. And, I think, Otis Rush, Because I doubt Peter would have written “Black Magic Woman” without Mr. Rush’s “All Your Loving.” So in the course of 5 minutes we get exposed to 3 brilliant guitarists, and Santana blends them all into a seamless whole.

If Carlos had done nothing else, making a hit out of “Oye Como Va” would be enough to secure his place in history. This incredibly cool cover of an incredibly cool tune by the great Tito Puente did more to bring the incredible music of the rest of the Americas to U.S. ears than any other TEN songs I can think of. It also reveals another facet of Carlos’ subtle innovation: he presents the guitar in the role of the ‘heroic trumpet,’ a common thread through a great many styles of Latin Music. The sustain, the legato phrasing, the interaction with the percussion, and the soaring quality of his note selection (almost all chord tones) are very trumpet-like features in his playing, and this approach has influenced every guitarist who has attempted a lyrical single–note solo since!

I love “Incident at Neshabur” – this song runs such a gamut of influences, from Horace Silver to Jimi Hendrix to Tito Puente to Burt Bacharach (check out the piano solo section!), and yet it all feels like Santana. This is a good time to mention the contribution of the percussion section: Jose Areas, Mike Carabello, and Mike Shrieve. It is their contribution that lies at the heart of the success of this record, and it is Carlos’ use of percussion that has given his music such a powerful identity for all these years. In “Se Acabó,” we get this wonderful tour of ‘drum world,’ and throughout this album, they are the element that gives cohesion to the sometimes wildly disparate influences of Señor Santana. Carlos plays elements of Trane, Latin trumpeters, and Albert King, and these guys make it seem perfectly logical!

“Mother’s Daughter” just goes ahead and rocks. Everyone just kinda cuts loose, and we get to hear Carlos just tear it up. I especially dig the way they rev up the outro, and hearing those cool ‘Jimi-isms’ from Santana with that clean tone. And tone is the single most important feature of Carlos’ playing, and the reason we love whoever our favorite musicians, whoever they are, almost always comes down to tone.

In “Samba pa Tí,” as in all of his work, Santana shows exquisite sensitivity to this fact. One feature of good tone production is that it doesn’t tire the ears. Even when playing lots of really high notes, Carlos doesn’t wear you out.

“I Hope You’re Feeling Better” is another amazing synthesis of elements. Any other band might’ve played his song pretty straight up, and it would’ve been cool, but this band makes it pop with vitality. The tune is what musicians would refer to as an ‘E thing’-a great many rock tunes have to do with guitars and basses having an ‘E’ as their lowest note – but  again, the percussionists elevate the tune with great texture changes, and that cool double time device towards the end.

With “El Nicoya,” we’re back to the primal element of drums. This is the heart of Santana, and a fitting end to this beautiful record. It took me awhile to write this fond remembrance, because I was listening to the record as I wrote it, and I frequently had to get up and dance.

When I was very young, I thought to be an artist you had to pace around frowning like Beethoven ‘til you thought of something “new.” Thanks to Carlos, I realized at a pretty early age that much innovation results from honestly reflecting all the things that have touched your soul. The genius of Carlos Santana to me is that he took so many different elements and lovingly put them side by side, knowing that as the influences passed through him the music would become Santana of its own accord.

There are a lot of connections here for me. The cover art directly lead me to later buy “Bitches’ Brew” by Miles Davis, and Carlos’ music helped me to understand it when I listened to it, and to so many other records. Beyond music, I started reading Herman Hesse because of this record, which helped lead me into a parallel universe of literature I traverse to this day. I learned about John McLaughlin through Carlos, as well. He helped open an awareness in me of our ultimate roots in Africa, and is another of the great players that showed me the way in my own life as a musician.

¡Viva Santana!

paz y amor.

Summertime

It’s summertime in Austin. A visitor from Toronto sticks her head out of my front door and it bursts into flames. In seconds it turns to dusty ash. Oh, Canada. A fat man falls asleep in a room with no air conditioning and wakes up gone. Dogs’ tongues loll out of their mouths and sizzle on the ground like bacon; cats cross the molten streets on extended claws. Grackles, naked and terrifying, glower at you and dare you to stare. Teenagers dive into Barton Springs and roil like taters in oil. Commuters, the damned, shriek and ululate, their hands melted to their steering wheels. The wealthy, the privileged, and the powerful remember there are deals to be done in Helsinki and Tierra del Fuego. The poor plan their moves, and then move slowly. Newcomers stare unbelievingly at thermometers at six in the morning. The old folks and the children smile — you get used to it, they say.

Hey, hey, Bo Diddley/Road tale #5

Amid all the “big” news today, I just noticed something sad, and important: Bo Diddley died. The AP story was accurate enough, I suppose – except they had his given name wrong, calling him “Ellis McDaniel” – it was “Elias McDaniel,” as every musician knows, or ought to.

It’s hard to imagine rocknroll without him. Not as central, perhaps, as Chuck Berry or Little Richard (I’d put Louis Jordan way up there, too), he still had a profound and lasting influence on the way we play that I’d say actually eclipses those giants. His signature rhythm, chunkchunkchunk aCHUNKchunk, has been used by everyone from Buddy Holly to George Thorogood, the Beatles to the Stones to, yes, lest we forget, Bow Wow Wow, hahaha.

Somewhere, right now, right here in Austin, Texas, someone is playing that groove.

Beyond that unique chop, though, was the idea of playing electric guitar percussively on the bass strings. These days – and by “these days” I mean stretching from this morning back 40 years – this defines as much as anything does what we mean when we say ‘rock’ – and we can thank Bo Diddley for it even as we curse the power chords rattling our windows while our neighbor’s band practices.

It was my privilege to play with the man years ago, for a two night stand, at Club West in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was in a roots rock outfit called ____________ – we considered it our joyous duty to know the sources of our music: rock, blues, rhythm and blues, and country — and knowing Bo was absolutely critical. When we got the call to be his backup band (it was common practice in those days for old school rock and blues guys to save money by playing with pickup bands), we were ecstatic, and of course we dug out every record we could lay our hands on and delved deep into the repertoire, basically learning every song.

We left Austin at 3 in the morning so we could make our 5 PM soundcheck/rehearsal with Bo with no problems. You don’t want to be late for a legend! The entire drive up we were listening to his music on cassettes (I told you this was a while back), and Jersey, our drummer, was especially excited – playing that cool rhythm all night long, bashing away on tom toms – with The Man!

We got to Club West way early, but Bo was waiting for us anyway. Some of the old guys we’d met along the way were — how shall I put it — a mite testy at times, so we were prepared for a LIVING ROCK LEGEND to be a little impatient with a bunch of eager, fresh-faced dorks. We figured our combination of dorky charm, knowing all of his songs – words and all – AND being really a very good band would surely win him over.

Well, it turned out he was as gracious and generous and funny as could be, and put us at complete ease within minutes. After we set up, Jersey the drummer couldn’t restrain himself (drummers are funny that way), and began playing that well-known tattoo, chunkchunkchunk aCHUNKchunk – and Bo waved him off, saying, “Bo don’t play that beat no mo.”

Poor Jersey was crestfallen, but Bo (I kept wanting to call him Mr. Diddley) looked over at me, and from under his flat rimmed hat, from behind his rectangular glasses, tipped me a big wink.

Rehearsal was about half a song long – once Bo figured out we could play, and play “in the style,” he took off for his hotel room.

That night (we were playing with him Friday and Saturday night) we opened the show with our own set, naturally avoiding our own epic rendition of “Who Do You Love,” one of Bo’s best-known songs. We finished our 45 minute-set – and not a minute too soon, the audience wanted Bo Diddley! – and out came Bo. Oh, we were so excited! Except Jersey, that is to say, who’d been mostly silent all day long.

Bo picked up his boxey, homemade guitar –

– and started playing chunkchunkchunk aCHUNKchunk, key of ‘E’, let’s go, boys. Jersey was beaming, and we played a magical set. Bo was clearly having a great time (pickup bands can be an incredibly iffy proposition, as you might imagine), and after about an hour, we took a break. Bo was of course immediately swamped by fans, many clutching records they’d had for years and years, and we were of course pretty much invisible, so we faded into the dressing room.

So there we were, in the dressing room — with Bo Diddley’s guitar! That guitar is a rock and roll artifact of the highest order. Bo built it himself. Everyone has seen it, whether they know it or not. That guitar had been on hit records, used on countless recordings since the ‘50s. We were archeologists in the Tomb of Tut, we were biologists looking at a living mastodon, we were European peasants cringing at an eclipse, hahaha.

After the initial awe started to wear off, one of our guitarists, William Blake, had the brilliant idea he’d do the master the service of tuning his guitar for him, what with him being so busy and all. We all said, uh, Blake, man, I dunno, I mean that’s not really a good idea, maybe…

But Blake was determined – I think he just wanted to touch the thing, you know? – he had that crazed sort of must-touch-holy-relic expression on his face, so he picked it up, gingerly, respectfully, and tuned it with an electronic tuner.

Now, Bo used an open tuning, which means: if you strum the strings open, it’ll make a particular chord. Slide players use open tunings a lot, as do Keith Richards (always) and Joni Mitchell. Blake, no fool, (well, maybe ½ fool) knew that, and tuned it to the right chord. Perfect. The legendary guitar, tweaked to digital tuner perfection.

The break ended, we got back up, Bo strapped on his guitar, strummed a big chord –

and turned around to us,

“Who the HELL messed with my guitar?”

Of course we all immediately pointed at Blake, hahaha, and Bo gave him a withering stare as he tuned his guitar back to whatever natural, music-of-the-spheres sound Bo Diddley carried in his head – maybe it wasn’t digitally in tune, but it was in tune, if you take my meaning.

After that bit of awkwardness, though, our second set was even better than the first, and Bo even took the trouble to go over to Blake during a solo and mime cooling his fingers off, putting him (and all of us) completely back in the game. What a gentleman.

Saturday night was even better. For one thing, we didn’t touch the guitar, for another, we had a night’s experience with the repertoire under our belts. At the end of Saturday night’s show, I remember, Bo was telling the audience to be careful going home, and we launched into this beautiful 3 part harmony thing, acapella, composed on the moment:

If you drink, don’t drive,

An’ if you drive,

Don’t drink

(repeat many times. audience, feel free to join in)

That’s it, that’s my Elias McDaniel story. Rest in Peace, Father.

Who Do You Love

Bo Diddley

I walked 47 miles of barbed wire,
Used a cobra snake for a neck tie.
Got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made out of rattlesnake hide.
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of human skulls.
Now come on darling let’s take a little walk, tell me,
Who do you love,
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.

Arlene took me by the hand,
And said oooh eeeh daddy I understand.
Who do you love,
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.
The night was black and the night was blue,
And around the corner an ice wagon flew.
A bump was a hittin’ lord and somebody screamed,
You should have heard just what I seen.
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.

Arleen took me by my hand, she said Ooo-ee Bo you know I understand
I got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind,
I lived long enough and I ain’t scared of dying.

Who do you love