BLUES FOR SALVADOR
Carlos Santana
•Jazz Rock/Fusion
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Studio Album, released in 1987 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Bailando/ Aquatic Park (5:47) - Carlos Santana / guitar
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CARLOS SANTANA Blues For Salvador ratings distribution
(36 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(8%)
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(36%)
Good, but non-essential (39%)
Collectors/fans only (14%)
Poor. Only for completionists (3%)
CARLOS SANTANA Blues For Salvador reviews
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Collaborators/Experts Reviews
PROG REVIEWER

I don`t undestand why this album was released as a solo album from Carlos Santana, because it really is a mixture of apparently solo tracks with some alternate versions of songs previously released in some albums by the band called Santana. Anyway, it is a very good album, IMO.
The album starts with "Bailando / Aquatic Park". The first part of this song is an instrumental piece full of percussion instruments plus Carlos`lead guitar. The second part has a singer, whose voice sounds more like from a Black singer. The song as a whole is very good.
The next song is the beautiful "Bella". Keyboard player Chester Thompson (not to be confused with Genesis`tour drummer also called Chester Thompson) plays very good keyboard atmospheres, while Carlos plays a vey good guitar solo, playing melodies, with his guitar sounding very influenced by Jazz guitar styles. In fact, in the cover notes, Carlos explains that in this piece of music, dedicated to his daughter Stella, "is also an expression of my respect and admiration for these musicians:Wes Montgomery, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, T. Bone Walker and John McLaughlin". The song is similar in parts to "Europa" and others by Santana, but the keyboards and the percussion instruments created very good musical atmospheres to support Carlos`very good guitar playing.
"I`m Gone" is a very `80s piece of pop music in style, with electronic drums and very good keyboards.
I think that the next song called "Trane" was dedicated to John Coltrane. It has Tony Williams playing energetic drums. Again, it also has very good playing by Carlos and Chester.
"Deeper, Dig Deeper", a song also included in Santana`s "Freedom" album, also appears in this album in an alternate version. It is an instrumental piece of music with programmed drum machine, keyboards and Carlos playing a guitar solo.
"Mingus" is a brief instrumental pice of music, dedicated to Charlie Mingus, played with keyboards and guitar.
"Now That You Know" is an instrumental piece of music recorded live during Santana`s 1985 tour. It is really a Rock song improvised on stage, with Indian atmospheres created by the keyboards. It really shines how good is the band playing in concert.
"Hannibal", in a different version from the one which appeared in Santana`s "Zebop" album, is a very good song, with some Brazilian music influences and a bit of Jazz-Rock jammimg at the end o fthe song. Carlos played acoustic and electric guitars. The song also has some lyrics maybe sung in Portuguese (I`m not sure of the language).
The album closes with a very good Blues instrumental song, called "Blues for Salvador", played by Chester and Carlos. If I remember well, this song won a Grammy for the best instrumental performance on an album.
In conclusion, this is a very good album. The songs were mostly composed by Carlos and Chester, and again, I can`t understand why this album wasn`t released as part of the Santana band`s discography instead of being released as a solo album.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk

With three (four actually) different line-ups, that album lacks cohesion, though and almost develops a schizophrenic nature. The highlights of the album are the opening track, the Trane homage are clearly from the A line-up (see the booklet), while the B line-up is unfortunately very actualised for the era especially drum-wise. Most of the album glides on relatively effortlessly (but not that smoothly for the above-mentioned reasons), but never manage to reach the spirit of Oneness or Swing Of Delight.
Not bad per se, but nothing worth rushing to the store for either, and not really essential. Still worthy of a three star rating, though.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator

PROG REVIEWER

This album holds some very good guitar work from the master (which was not the case on his prior solo album), and the beat goes from traditional Latin music (''Bailando'') to funk (''Deeper.''), from syrupy music (''I'm Gone'') to quite rocking mood during ''Trane''.
There is one long (live) track featured on this album (over ten minutes), which might well indicate that creativity was not at its peak but ''Now That You Know'' is a fine moment of Latin rock music which reminds me at times of the early days of the band.
All in all, the good moments are not too few on this album. One is not facing a masterpiece of course (those were released a long, long time before this record), but if soft jazz-Latin-rock is of your liking, why not listening to this ''Blues For Salvador''?
''Hannibal'' holds some fine percussion works and combines excellent guitar parts with poor vocal ones (as usual should I say); the closing and title track is all subtlety and harmony. A wonderful trip into Carlos emotional guitar phantasmagoria.
Three stars (but this is rated on the high end by a life time fan).
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