Santana

Yes indeed, there was a time when the pyramids had not yet been built, when the Colosseum wasn't even conceived. And in music, incredible as it may sound, "Abraxas" did not yet exist. But like all great works that defy time, when it finally appeared, it seemed as though it had always been there, inevitable, perfect in its very existence. Its cover alone, a mystical hallucination painted by Mati Klarwein, was enough to enshrine it as something more than just an album: a sonic talisman, a work that, like an ancient annunciation, doesn't merely present itself but reveals a world suspended between dream and revelation. Its enigmatic title evokes an archaic deity, guardian of the eternal balance between good and evil, light and shadow, creation and destruction. Yet the music is never a struggle, never uncontrolled chaos. There's no excess, no ostentation: only breath, fluidity, a perfect harmony between opposites. The fusion of rock, blues and Latin rhythms, barely hinted at on the debut album, is fully realized here, revealed in its finest form.

It's almost superfluous to talk about certain tracks by now: "Oye Como Va", "Samba Pa Ti"... they're everywhere, etched into the collective memory, echoing through commercials, films, radio... everyone knows them, even without knowing who played them. But before "Abraxas", who had ever made music like this? "Oye Como Va" is, in fact, a cover of a song written by Tito Puente about a decade earlier, but Santana don't just reinterpret it: they transfigure it. Puente's original is an orchestral cha-cha-cha, elegant and syncopated, rooted in Cuban tradition. In the American band's version, the rhythm becomes more visceral, the bassline pulses with an almost funky drive, the guitar slips in with sharp, cutting phrases. The result is no longer just Latin, nor just rock: it's something else entirely, a new sonic creature that slips outside all categories.

"Samba Pa Ti" represents the most lyrical and dreamlike side of Carlos Santana. Here the guitarist steps away from the tight, virtuosic phrasing of contemporaries like Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page, choosing instead the path of absolute expressiveness, closer to B.B. King or Peter Green in the weight he gives to every note. There's no speed, no technical showing off: the guitar doesn't impose itself, but lets itself be carried, with a wide, passionate vibrato that wraps the blues in a tropical, warm, slightly nostalgic languor. Incredible as it may seem, given how dominant Carlos was becoming within the group, "Samba Pa Ti" is the only track to bear his sole songwriting credit, alongside "Incident At Neshabur", another instrumental co-written with pianist Alberto Gianquinto. The track, tinged with a clear jazz influence, unfolds as an uninterrupted flow of tension and release, alternating moments of harmonic suspension with sudden rhythmic surges. The finale is a true apotheosis of interplay, a superb dialogue between electric guitar and piano, in which the two virtuosos chase each other, challenge each other, and finally merge.

It falls to another instrumental, "Singing Winds, Crying Beasts", to open the album. It's a prelude of highly rarefied atmospheres, with wind chimes and percussion pulsing in the distance like a primordial heartbeat, while Gregg Rolie's Hammond organ lays a dreamlike, almost psychedelic veil over Santana's scattered guitar notes. It's the perfect gateway to prepare the listener for "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen". Chosen as one of the album's lead singles, alongside the two aforementioned hits and "Hope You're Feeling Better", the first section, a cover of the song of the same name by Peter Green, became one of Santana's signature songs, so much so that many believe it to be an original composition. In an interview, the English guitarist recalled attending one of their concerts and only then realizing just how much his song had been transformed: in the hands of Fleetwood Mac it was a spectral, whispered blues with a melancholy aura. Santana completely reshape it, weaving Latin percussion together with rock vibrations that grow ever more urgent in the transition into "Gypsy Queen" (written by Gabor Szabo), until it explodes into an overwhelming percussion solo atop an electrified carpet of guitars.

As for "Hope You're Feeling Better", it's the track that comes closest to the "hard" rock of the era. Here Santana and his band dive into sounds closer to Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin: a granite-hard guitar riff, a Hammond organ turned aggressive, and a vocal that pushes forward with almost furious intensity. Of a different energy, but just as overwhelming, is "Se A Cabo", penned by percussionist José "Chepito" Areas. Here rhythm is obviously the true protagonist: a frenzied explosion of percussion over which Santana glides with his razor-sharp guitar. "Mother's Daughter" brings the album back to territory closer to blues-rock, while the closing is entrusted to the very brief "El Nicoya", a piece all its own, with Caribbean rhythms and a light-hearted spirit, almost like a ghost track. A disorienting choice to close out a monumental album that, even today, still vibrates with the same primordial force—elusive, indefinable, and outside of time, just like the deity it's named after.

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23/03/2025