Product: Santana - Live by Request (2005)
Rating: 4.0
Carlos plays with fire
One of the first albums I ever bought was Abraxas, way back around '71. I loved Carlos's fiery guitar playing and aggressive, percussive rythms, and bought all subsequent Santana releases until the early 80s. At that point I felt Santana became too "pop" oriented and I lost interest. I guess I can't blame Carlos for his more recent incorporation of world and hip hop in his music, if you want to sell records and survive as a musician, you have to give the people what they want, and virtuoso lead guitar doesn't sell like it did 30 plus years ago.When I saw that the new "Live by Request" DVD included older songs like Soul Sacrifice and Evil Ways and my all time Santana favorite "Europa" I decided I had to check it out.To my surprise Carlos plays extremely well, and the old songs have lost very little over the years. One of the newer pieces (DA LE) Yaleo includes some nice jazz/rock fusion, sounding a little bit like music from the Lotus release way back when. Carlos is wearing a John Coltrane "Love Supreme" T shirt, which seems to set the tone for some fine playing and indicates that, despite surrounding himself with a lot of new "pop" stars, he hasn't forgotten his roots and inspiration. When the hip hoppers jump on stage, I simply jump to the next track. All in all, a very enjoyable DVD for an old Santana fan like me. The camera work and sound are very good, but I rate the DVD 4 stars because the set is only about an hour long.