Recommend Me Some More Santana

I like to think of Lotus as the flip side of Moonflower. Both massively satisfying performances, out around the same time, one about the band's aspirations, the other about the casual American audience's expectations. And although they appealed to two different types of fans, neither could be considered "the wrong direction".

Now I wanna think for awhile about which album is the flip side of Caravanserai!

 

I like the music on Moonflower, however, I find the concept of splitting the live tracks with studio tracks to be somewhat of a let down. The end result neither fish nor fowl.
I would have much preferred a studio album & a proper 2 lp live album. Santana's management was certainly capable of making poor decisions including the failure to release Lotus at the time.

Lotus the definite A side to Moonflowers B side. As such you could name any number of albums a poor flipside to the magnificent Caravanserai

 

Caravanserai
Lotus

Barboletta has its moments also

I also like the grey area releases out there which feature the Pacific Studios recordings that were done before the first album (they include some later jams with Neil Schon apparently). The one I have is called MCMLVII

 

i had the pleasure of seeing santana last night.

i can only say:

stunningly brilliant.

 

thanks everyone so far for responding with recommendations

 

Yea, a lot of great tracks; this would really lend itself to being re-sequenced into a studio set and a live set.

 

Interesting notion - I bet Columbia had more to do with the idea of offering Americans a 3-disc live document of essentially free jazz from a band Americans mostly know from 4 hit singles, with 23-panel artwork insert as a little eccessive. If Lather was Warner's bugaboo, Columbia had already sidestepped that calamity when they sidestepped Lotus in the states. Besides, more rabid fans were already willing to spend top dollar for it through import channels, So offering more casual fans with "only" 18 bucks a "souvenier pastiche" with more accessible choices seemed like a win/win for them. Surely even Santana's management could see the wisdom in that*. So: totally live, long-form concert tape from Japan, or the satisfying length of 2 discs of live favorites with studio tracks included, yeilding a single to get on the radio and push the album (Hello, Three Sides Live! )? Yin, and yang. A, and B. Dick York, and Dick Sargent. Done, and done.

Maybe it's too personal, because this was my favorite Santana coming out of high school into college, but I see Amigos as a good candidate for Caravanserai's "b-side: less-jazz-more-funk, less esoteric, more "catchy", more in-your-face than "new age-y", and arrangement-wise the music strikes me as more "prepared, less "loose". A perfect flip-side to a jazzy ensemble wandering around in the desert.


(*And if they really did their job, the lotus would only grow in legend, Santana would probably reach Dylan-like status, and American shores would most likely see the album someday anyway, when the climate was ripe. And yup, that all happened.)

 

There would have been no for a choice between one or the other for the fans if Lotus was released when it was recorded in 1973. 4 years before Moonflower. Lotus was eventually released world wide due to the sheer volume that were being imported from Japan. (A similar situation had happened with Deep Purple - Made In Japan).

Santana have miss fired at every opportunity to release a timely quality full 2 LP live set. Moonflower feels like a cheap bitsa project, Sacred Fire had limited release & we had to wait nearly 30 years for Live at the Fillmore 1868. I have heard a number of bootlegs that really deserve a wider audience (Ice Palace a good example). Santana assembled some pretty good bands with an interesting variety of top quality musicians who could deliver the goods live.

 

I think some archival live releases would work well. There are so many songs that only got played for one or two tours and never again, especially after the post-millennium shows mostly eliminated the late-70's to early 90's material.

 

Yes. I'd like to hear different versions of the band playing some of the lesser known material & putting a different spin on the more well known.
The bootlegs I've hear suggest that they were always pretty decent performers live. He has played with a lot of excellent musicians.

 

Occasionally a Japanese import can wake the "head office" up a little, that they're missing something big happening elsewhere. Your example is Deep Purple; mine is Sting's first solo album.

Gotta say though, looks like I hold Moonflower in higher regard than you seem to. I don't think it sounds slapdash at all, I see it as a portfolio-document of a band, moreso than any number of live albums delivered by bands who still felt the need to "spritz-it-up" later in a studio once they got off the road. The live and the studio mix doesn't bother me at all. And I really love the material.

 

I don't know anything about Stings album being released earlier in Japan before it was released in the UK or USA. But then I don't know much about Sting anyhow.

I like the music on Moonflower. I don't know if the live bits have been "spritz-it-up" later in a studio or not. They sound good to me
Don't you think a 2LP live album & a single studio album would have been much better.

Yes did a similar thing with the live/studio concept with their 2 Keys to Ascension albums & I don't think they worked all the well either

 

I think the Fillmore set from Santana III Legacy Edition is not that great. The band's intensity level is average at best. The Woodstock live show from Santana Legacy Edition from 1969 is so much better and the band's intensity level is off the charts IMHO.

 

Doesn't matter if you don't know or care about Sting. What matters is, Bring On The Night was a 2-LP set of essentially jazz, from a former pop-punk-y superstar band, and America almost missed it. Because the record establishment didn't think they could sell it. Fans and interested parties looking for something different practically forced A&M's hand on that title, and I dunno, maybe they were waiting for a studio single like "Roxanne" to launch him with, but eventually they had to put the product out domestically.

No, I wasn't talking about Moonflower being "spritzed-up" in any way. Try reading it again; I was saying, so many other artists of that time would record live material, bring it back home, and decide they needed to add overdubs, and essentially beef-up their road tapes, and Santana's Band didn't need to do that. But, the album as a whole hangs together for me very well, because it represents both the performance quality of their live shows, as well as what they were working on in the studio as well. That's why I like it, for the diversity of items in it, still targeted towards the expectations of fans with simpler tastes than his more "out there" work the rest of the world was more accepting of.

And, no, I think a 3-LP live album, and a string of studio albums is better. And, we've got that, so let me enjoy Moonflower for what it is: one of my favorite Santana albums, for the reasons I have explained (rather patiently, I felt) 3 times now.

"Yes"? Not familiar - is that a band...?

 

Ye

Surely you've heard of Yes. They are the reason everybody loves punk rock.

 

This is one they should have released

 

Caravanserai
Moonflower
Zebop!

 

I really wish there was a solid, extensive compilation or good curated playlist that covered just the 1972-1993 era. I know Dance of the Rainbow Serpent had a lot of content, but also seems like a bit of a hodgepodge, not chronological and with random non-Santana tracks towards the end. I just think a true Santana aficionado (or Carlos and other band members) could provide a better overview than what's out there. But I suppose there's not much demand for anything between the first three records and Supernatural at this point.

 

Two of the greatest songs to close out the 70s that just happen to be by Santana...

First, 'Open Invitation' from 'Inner Secrets' 1978.

 

2nd up, 'All I Ever Wanted' from 'Marathon' 1979.

 

I'm a bit confused by your posts. you made mention of stings first album and then keep talking about bring on the night. wasn't the album dream of blue turtles by sting recorded and released BEFORE bring on the night was recorded? dream of blue turtles was released in the summer of 1985 and bring on the night was recorded from may to December of 1985

 

Yes is that band that released a No.1 worldwide smash a few years after all the punk rock was replaced by Iron Maiden.

 

Stay away from Zebop and Shango. Both are extremely dull. Inner Secrets is decent.

Caravanserai is great.

 

No, you're not confused, youo've caught me not being more thourough in checking my memory. The album, tour and documentary were all about playing this material which would later be turned into tracks for Dream of Blue Turtles, which indeed was the album to be released first. A 2003 writeup by Trevor McLaren doesn't detail session dates, particularly for the gestation of what Bring on the Night was, leaving me to see it as all one project. And, since the album was not initally realeased in the U.S. (which really was my whole point in bringing up the album in the first place, not whether it was first or second or trillionth, but that North America didn't get it until later than the rest of the world did. Look at the "version release" list on it from Discogs; they don't list exact release dates, but they're usually pretty correct in their cronological release dates anyway).

So, thanks for keeping me "honest"; we weren't even talking about Sting in the first place, I was using its' non-domestic release as an example on how it relates to Santana's Lotus getting skipped for release here in the U.S.