Have a picture of Santana & McLaughlin, Love Devotion Surrender?, please send it to us.
| Value for Money | 10/10 |
|---|---|
| Overall rating | 10/10 |
By jfderry
on 29th Aug 2006
| Other Artists Listened To | Not supplied |
|---|---|
| Format | Audio CD |
| Value for money | 10/10 |
| Overall value | 10/10 |
 jfderry's recommendation | |
Love Devotion Surrender is one of the least understood albums of all time, caught between die-hard Santana fans, McLaughlin guardians, and the bastion of superciliousness in jazz complexity. But Love Devotion Surrender is not complex. It is intense, and woven from a loom of Santana and McLaughlin's reverence for spritual music, and for one exponent of spritual music in particular, the high priest John Coltrane.
True complementarity is hard to find, but here the two guitarists are "as one", bonded via their guru Sri Chinmoy. The assembled band is also, very importantly, a fusion of Santana and Mahavishnu Orchestra. Michael Shrieve, Billy Cobham, Doug Rauch, Armando Peraza, Jan Hammer, Don Alias, plus fellow Tony Williams' Lifetime member, genius organist Larry Young.
Added bonuses aside, this remastering at last does justice to this historical album. The musical breadth seems far wider. The dense middle is opened up, allowing clarity to Young's anchoring role. Original Sony reissues and the Japanese Sony Mastersound import versions frustrated fans, and the quad channel 8-track version with legendary alternative McLaughlin guitar solo on The Life Divine remains elusive. The only other alternative was the Love Devotion Surrender and Welcome bootleg Love Devotion Surrender Sessions [Jam / A Love Supreme / Naima / The Life Divine (2 takes) / Mantra / Flame Sky / Untitled 1 / Untitled 2 / Acoustic Jams / Samba De Sausalito (4 takes)], and this brings us to the bonus tracks on this remaster. A Love Supreme (Alternate - Take 2) is a working version of Coltrane's Acknowledgement in development and nowhere near the sheer uplifting intensity of the eventual cut. There is no 12-string nor vocals and Larry Young is less emphatic. The other bonus track, Naima (Alternate - Take 4) mainly shows Santana's working with the melody.
Compared to the bootleg releases this feels like short change. Especially considering the excellent job the bootleggers did on their revised artwork and packaging. The remaster lacks any real investment in packaging, and doesn't even bother an attempt to reproduce the original. Like no picture of Chinmoy, not even that famous group photo in his backyard in Queens. Instead, the promised "expanded booklets and new liner notes" are parsimonious, seemingly written to bind the remastered series, rather than treat each album explicitly. They are also erroneous, e.g., A Love Divine!
The inclusion of promised "vintage photos" is sadly reduced to a single one of Carlos Santana and none of McLaughlin. And this further fuels the grievance of McLaughlin fans that this album has been repeatedly ambushed in the name of the Santana commercial waggon. The liner notes mislead by categorising the album as a Santana solo release, and a whole page of the slim booklet is taken up with a list of "Santana on Columbia". The remixed Divine Light: Music From Illuminations & Love Devotion Surrender (see Review) did no favours being released as an album by "Carlos Santana / Bill Laswell", and now this remaster again underplays McLaughlin's input, and arguably, his dominating presence. At the time Santana admitted that he was in awe of McLaughlin's superior playing. McLaughlin introduced Santana into the church of Chinmoy, and arguably into this type of playing. It seems far more a natural progression for Mahavishnu fusion maestro McLaughlin than the comparably lyrical Santana.
In the end it's the music, right? And undeniably, this is a great sound for a great album, and a must have, even if the packaging sucks. But, the "Powers That Be" do have another chance to get that right too - it is rumoured that the entire Santana catalog is up next for SADC treatment.
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