Welcome to another new edition of our bi-weekly record-diving sampling extravaganza!
Thank you all for joining @natehorn and I for another week of sampling goodness! Before we get into our artist and track in focus, and in case you aren’t already aware, there are some other Mission Briefs/Challenges currently taking place that you may also fancy spending some time on here:
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@BLKrbbt’s Drum n’ Bass Battle #5 (Resurrection…also, Found Sounds) [Deadline May 3rd!]
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@Habit_Reform’s Electronic/Sythesized Hip Hop/Rap Beat challenge
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@Unifono is hosting the voting for the [closed] Hip Hop battle #20 - 007 Theme
Firstly, I offer my sincerest apologies for the delay in posting this week’s challenge. Life has thrown a few unexpectedly difficult circumstances, seemingly simultaneously, and I really want to thank the many kind souls here on this forum for their support and hope that @everyone can please join in honoring the memory of a fallen legend.
The whole world lost on 04/13/23. RIP Sunny aka Sensei.
Our artists in focus do not require much of an introduction, as I’m fairly certain that a lot of us can share similar experiences on how we were each individually introduced at some point in time to this wildly captivating group of musicians who honed their leader’s last name. More than likely, an elder acquaintance (my father in my case) was the source of enlightenment to none other than the iconic artist/band, Santana. I once had a customer a few years ago who told me that they had the pleasure of having Santana play at their High School prom in the Bay Area of California, prior to blowing up and becoming a common household name worldwide.
The track “Eternal Caravan of Reincarnation” is the introduction to the album Caravanserai, which was recorded February 21 – May 5, 1972 and released in October of the same year on Columbia records (KC – 31610).
Here are some brief bits from the web about the song along with some light wiki-info about an album that may not have existed:
In the Near East, the word Caravanserai means a large courtyard that provides accommodation for caravans, or simply a group of people travelling together. But Carlos Santana found a different meaning for it when he was reading a text by Indian yogi and guru Paramahansa Yogananda: “The caravan is the eternal cycle of reincarnation, every soul going into and out of life, from death to life and back again, until you arrive at a place where you can rest and achieve an inner peace. That place is the caravanserai.” He could not come up with a better title for the album, as it represents not only his personal quest for spirituality at that time, but also the music that the band created for the album. There is a level of intensity and urgency about that music that has its peers in the beginnings of jazz rock: albums by Miles Davis, Tony Williams’ Lifetime and John MacLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra. But unlike most albums in the genre that came about when jazz musicians discovered that rock attitudes and instrumentations can add a new dimension to their music, it is rare to find a rock band foraying into jazz territories. Sure, progressive rock bands, mostly from the British Isles like Soft Machine and King Crimson, were already doing that in spades by 1972. But for an American top 40 band to do that, and with such a level of integrity and sincerity, that was unique.
Santana in 1972
…Another album Santana was listening to was Thembi by Pharoah Sanders, released in 1971. The album opener, Astral Travelling, has a laid back atmospheric mood, with lots of reverb and echo effects on the electric piano.
Carlos Santana was looking for the same mood to start his album, but had an additional request: “I told engineer Glen Kolotkin at the beginning of the sessions that I wanted the album to start with the sound of nature, and he said ‘I got just the thing – in my backyard I have a cricket chorus, and you won’t believe how loud they get.’” The result was Eternal Caravan of Reincarnation, opening up Caravanserai with 35 seconds of nothing but crickets before a saxophone intro by Hadley Caliman, a friend of Michael Shrieve who joined the sessions on an invitation by the drummer.
The rest of the track takes us into a territory the band lightly explored on Singing Winds, Crying Beasts, the track that opened Abraxas. But here it segues immediately into a jazzier space with Tom Rutley’s acoustic bass. You immediately notice that the overall sound is much more natural and close than the Latin rock-oriented production on their previous albums.
Doug Rauch had a major impact on the music that was committed to tape during the recording sessions for the album. Shrieve: “Doug’s joining us also had to do with the fact that Carlos was getting into John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra and so was Doug. He was really, really good at playing odd time signatures like that band did, and he utilized his thumb technique doing this as well. When we went into the studio to record Caravanserai, Doug brought in the song Waves Within, which was in 9/4, I believe. That song is an example of where Doug was going.” Adding a comment about his technique, Shrieve recalled: “Doug had a really unique way of playing. He was one of the first to play with the thumb and popping technique that was later made famous by Larry Graham and Stanley Clarke, and I think that Doug should be credited as the first to really develop that technique into a comprehensive playing style.” Sadly Rauch, who continued with Santana for a couple years during their increasing ventures into jazz, passed away in 1979 from a drug overdose. He was only 28, a great loss to the music world.
When label head Clive Davis listened to it, he told Santana and Shrieve, who are both listed as producers of the album: “This is a career suicide. Clearly there’s not one single within a thousand miles of this album. There’s nothing here to take to radio and get a hit with. It feels like you’re turning your backs on yourselves. The jazz stuff is great, but there’s already a Miles Davis. There’s already a Weather Report. Why don’t you just be Santana?” But like Schon and Rolie already figured out, Santana was already far away from other people’s perception of Santana. Indeed there was no single forthcoming, but the album did pretty well, likely riding the high of the band’s success with the previous albums. It reached no 8 on Billboard’s Top 200 LPs list in December 1972. That same week Yes reached no. 5 with Close to the Edge and the list topper was Seventh Sojourn by the Moody Blues.
Summarizing his experience in making the album, Michael Shrieve said: “We thought it was appealing, to the ear and to the soul. It made me feel good inside. There is a certain purity in the music that is seemed had to be recognized that would touch people if they really listened to it.” I’ll hand the closing comment to Carlos Santana: “Shrieve was there to complete the journey that became Caravanserai. He was in my corner and I was in his – we helped each other complete it. More than any Santana album, Caravanserai was meant to be a full album experience, with one track connected to the next – a body of work like What’s Going On or A Love Supreme.”
from this music aficionado blog post about the album
The album reached number eight in the Billboard 200 chart and number six in the R&B Albums chart in 1972.[9]
The album was regarded as an artistic success, but the musical changes that began on its release in 1972 marked the start of a fall in Santana’s commercial popularity. In a 2013 interview, drummer and album co-producer Michael Shrieve recalled that Columbia Records president Clive Davis, upon first hearing the finished album, told Santana he was committing “career suicide.”
from this wiki article about the album
Here are two different youtube user uploads in case there are regional playback issues:
Here is a link to the hi-res 24/96 .flac version of the track, please delete it after using:
Santana - Eternal Caravan of Reincarnation
Album Photos:
from this music aficionado blog post about the album
THE BRIEF
YOU have been selected by the notorious Global Sound Syndicate for a top-secret operation. Not really, please, share with your friends, family, and even the team behind the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
Mission:
-Sample any part(s) of the track we’ve nominated
-Spend no more than 1 week turning it into music
-Post your creations here for us all to enjoy
Deadline: Sunday , May 7, 2023
Submit your entry no later than 11:59 PM, Sunday, May 7, 2023, or be faced with a brief moment of self-loathing for not participating. Submissions entered on later dates are also welcome!
Compensation:
Hearts and compliments from the community
(not guaranteed)
You can use as much or as little of the sample track as you like, you just have to use it. No winners, no losers, just good times!
Every two weeks we will post a track from our record collections, ideally something you’ve not heard before. Jams, full tracks, noodles - share whatever you like!
I’ll probably come back to it on the OT and use more of the stems for a second jam coz I’m greedy.
Used a bunch of the Santana track with this one, with some extra spice from the Prelinger Archive and some other bits and bobs. I’ve been using my Digitakt and Digitone a lot recently, trying to really focus on a more minimal approach which I’m enjoying - the new machines on the Digitakt really open some doors!