LIVE AT THE 1988 MONTREAUX JAZZ FESTIVAL WITH WAYNE SHORTER

It began almost as a lark when Carlos Santana encountered his longtime friend and hero Wayne Shorter on the concert trail in Atlanta, GA, in 1987, Carlos said, "Let's start a rumor that we're putting a band together.". Wayne's eyes got bigger and brighter as he smiled and then responded: "Yeah, Carlos, let's start a rumor.".

A few months later the Carlos Santana / Wayne Shorter Band performed its debut concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco, the beginning of a 26-concert tour throughout the US and Europe. The performance of this magnificent band was recorded at Montreux, Switzerland, on July 14, 1988, and includes interviews with Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter and festival creator Claude Nobs.

That were all the words printed at the DVD package. With that sort of brief description I can sense that this is just a project that represented collaboration between two talented musicians: Carlos Santana (guitar) and Wayne Shorter (saxophone). I have heard quite often Wayne Shorter name in jazz arena but I have never paid attention on what kind of albums he has ever produced nor the albums where he contributed. But from this collaboration live performance DVD I can see from my own eyes that Wayne Shorter is a great musician in sax as well as clarinet.

If you are a bit like into jazz music, you may consider this DVD for your collection. First, you can get the music that this DVD delivers: a balanced marriage of latin rock guitar style and music where Santana has usually composed and jazz music. The result is an excellent performance with nice music. The styles of music they play are different from one track to another. There are tracks with upbeat tempo as well as those with mellow. Example of excellent upbeat track is "Elegant People" where the music gives Wayne Shorter's improvisation of music using his saxophone, combined nicely with percussion, two keyboards and drums. Chester Thompson and Patrice Rushen are also great keyboard players and seem to be one of the attraction points of this DVD package.

There are many attractions throughout the performance of this band where not only Carlos Santana plays stunning guitar solo, but also the wonderful solo of keyboard as well as drums. The one I enjoy most is when Chester Thompson plays keyboard solo during Mandela.

Overall, this is an excellent addition to any prog music DVD especially for those who favor jazz music. As far as live performance DVD, this is an excellent one because the band plays the music in energetic way. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild -GW