CARLOS SANTANA AND BUDDY MILES! LIVE!

In my quest for any Santana album in my early teens, I got this one at the time of release not knowing what to expect from this live record. But my idea was that Carlos + the drummer of "The Band Of Gypsy" couldn't be bad.

"Marbles" is probably the closer you can get to "Batuka". A great opener in the tradition of the very good Santana numbers. The dexterity of the masters shining throughout the song. A great start by all means. And the short "Lava" keeps on with the crying and so emotional guitar. But remember, Schon is also playing in this live set.

One "true" Santana song. An old one, from their debut album (which is highly recommended). But it is not a great version of "Evil Ways", I must say. The accelerated rhythm, and those needless sax & trumpet which replace the good organ solo by Greg Rolie, are mostly destroying this originally good song.

The short and useless soul / jamming "Faith Interlude" turns into the funky "Them Changes" without transition. Some sort of a poor "Sly & The Family Stones" song. These are the weakest moments of this album and closed the first side of the vinyl album.

The side long "Free Form." has its roots in some of the tracks performed at the Fillmore West (in 1968), but at the time this live album was not released yet. It is indeed free form music and I could never really enter into this "trip".

A complete chaos for three minutes, some sax solo for another three and on and on with solo interrupted by the crowd cheering at the end of each one of those. Some sort of "Get Ready" (from "Rare Earth") but much less interesting.

This piece of music gets better when the dual guitars enter the scene (after eight minutes or so). Some good congas, percussion and back to hectic again. The very few great moments are the guitar ones but these aren't too many, unfortunately. At times, some notes reminds me of "All The Love Of The Universe" as well.

I do not listen to this album very much. For the purpose of this review, I did it probably thirty five years after my previous listening.

Two stars.