Santana "Shape Shifter"

The man has nearly thirty studio and live albums to his credit and my inventory amounts to seventeen of them.  So it was of great interest to me to see an instrumental release, especially since he wasn't on a major label anymore. 

The record opens with a bang...



You will also notice that this is from a live show four years ago.  Turns out that most of the tracks from this album have been laying around for some time, no doubt given the thumbs down by Arista for any of their releases.  After a couple of spins, I believe the label got it right.  The songs just aren't very good, and it pains me to say it.  I suppose I had set the bar too high.

The recurring notations I made while listening to this album were "re-tread song snippets," "drum loops?(!)" and "ultra-cheesy synthesizers."  When employing a real Hammond B-3, as in the above title track, Carlos' fretwork has a fire to it.  But damn, those dated synth lines and drum programming ='s "Santana Does Muzak." 

Not a total loss, though.  Two of the opening three tracks are keepers and then late in the album we get two winners in a row.  One has the only vocals, en espanol, claro (?), and the other is a six-minute classic. 

These days it seems everybody has five-star ratings systems.  I'll give this a 1 1/2.  My Santana inventory remains at seventeen.