CARLOS SANTANA & JOHN MCLAUGHLIN: LOVE DEVOTION SURRENDER

LOVE DEVOTION SURRENDER is a collaboration of two of the greatest guitarists of the early 70s namely CARLOS SANTANA and JOHN McLAUGHLIN. This is one of those spiritual albums that was inspired by their religious guru Sri Chinmoy, whom both men studied under. The album was also supposed to be a tribute to John Coltrane which has reworkings of two of Coltrane's compositions. This era also marks the period where both guitarists were undergoing profound changes in their musical realties. SANTANA was struggling to find a way to move his music which took a good start with his own "Caravanserai" and McLAUGHLIN was on the verge of the Mahavishnu Orchestra imploding.

I have heard about this album for a while and it has always intrigued me because it sounds like it should be one of the most anticipated collaborations in musical history, but after trying to get into this album there are a few things that are going on here, or not going on as the case may be. I feel this album lacks is a true musical direction. The tributes to Coltrane are interesting and they, to my ears, the most interesting pieces on this album, but the rest of the tracks sound more like a battle for dominance than a true merging of talents. Tracks either sound like a Caravanserai era SANTANA song with McLAUGHLIN frenetically going off over it or some kind of jazz-fusion piece that McLAUGHLIN came up with verging on the over sentimental. Point blank, there is NOTHING on this album that even comes close to what these two had done with their bands in the previous years. Still though, it is a pleasant enough listen despite being a disappointment but hardly an album you should sell your kidneys over.