#mymusicbinge: Santana Abraxas
2015 August 16
[While watching Ginny in the mornings and afternoons, I’m avoiding the TV and listening to music instead. Today, Ginny got to hear Santana’s Abraxas for the first time!]
How many pop artists today are quoting Hesse on the back of their MP3s?
Columbia House might have called it quits last week, but CD clubs brought these records into my father’s hands decades after their original releases, to be shared, then stolen, by his Kurt-Cobain-idolizing son.
My dad reminisced, “We couldn’t afford to buy many records after your grandmother died and your grandfather was working shifts at General Electric [in Detroit].” The best albums were the ones my dad would warn, “Don’t get caught taking that one to school!”
Music was a bridge; but Abraxas was out of this world.
* * * Musical Notes * * *
Yes, Carlos Santana’s guitar tone is legendary, but the B3 organ is equally important on this record. Take note of the both instruments shining during “Incident at Neshabur”. Put your headphones on for this one:
- 0:10: Piano’s panned right, organ’s panned left, which is really great at 0:48; percussion’s panned, too.
- 0:18: Enter vibroslap!
- 2:33-3:42: Eat your heart out Protools producers with your click tracks, no way this one was recorded on a grid with the rhythm and time signature changes!
- 3:00: The guitar lick is an example how tone comes more from the hands than the equipment: the volume swell/feedback into a bend/trill, into soft notes!
- 4:46: Which instrument is going to end the song? The guitar, no the piano, wait the bass slide; ah the percussion!
The biggest hit from the album, “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” has a 1:26 long instrumental introduction, breaking the typical rule of “get to the first lyrica quickly” that popular music follows today.
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