Santana - Abraxas (2020) [Vinyl]

An incredible guitar hero who has been a source of inspiration for hordes of other incredible guitar heroes, Carlos Santana’s musical range is as wide as it gets. Starting out in Latin rock and funk bands that could almost be described as psychedelic, the Mexican musician has now masterfully fused psychedelic rock and hot funk together and released music under his own name. Accompanied by his brilliant band, he unexpectedly achieved enormous success at Woodstock festival. On this second album, released in September 1970 on CBS records, his sound is multifaceted, contributing to the jazz-rock/jazz-fusion movement that was starting to take hold at the time. His lyrical guitar playing combined with the warm musical tones of his fellow musicians results in incredible tracks such as Black Magic Woman (which is actually a cover of a song Peter Green wrote for Fleetwood Mac), Oye Como Va (a sensual take on a Tito Puente song) as well as Incident At Neshabur (an incredible electronic Latin jazz instrumental that really gets you going before fading into a hushed groove). Somewhere between psychedelic rock, funk fusion, popular blues, contemporary salsa and high-voltage jazz, Abraxas is a pioneering record, an album ahead of its time... © Marc Zisman