Carlos Santana / Bill Laswell, Divine Light Reviews

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Good Points: I like the fact that Laswell has placed his stamp on this very nice recording. The musicians, from the early 70s, are all some of the top of their game, including Jan Jammer John McLaughlin and Billy Cobham of Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Carlos Santana. Then Bill has remixed it and added some of his bass magic. So this is a perfect combination of old and new, and Laswell is perfect for the project because he still utilizes many of the same instrumentation and world instruments that were used in this recording. Other high points are some early Minimoog use, a nice cover of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" and some very nice meditative early "world music". Santana and McLaughlin both bring it, and they're at the height of their creativity and technical prowess at this time.

Bad Points: The only bad point would be the fact that it is not exactly as the original is, but you can go out and find the originals (2 albums turned into 1 CD) as a point of comparison, if you want.

General comments: Bill Laswell has chosen to remix these recordings undoubtedly because they had an influence on him just as the excellent Miles Davis Pangea recordings did. So he knew going into it that he had some incredible material to work with. The CD artwork is consistently high as are most of Laswell's recent productions. He brings this seminal recording up-to-date in a manner that really makes it shine. I may be biased because I enjoy listening to anything BIll Laswell plays on or produces. This is a really fine recording, if you are into world, meditative, Santana, Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, Shakti, Shankar, etc. If you prefer more pop or traditional swing jazz it may not be locked into your favorite genre. But if you like all styles of music and enjoy more meditative, wide-open electric improvisational fare, this may be the ticket, and if you don't have an example of either Santana, McLaughlin, or Laswell, this could be an interesting introduction to their music, even though it is not necessarily the same as the rest of any of these artists' music.

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The prolific Bill Laswell has been a part of New York's music scene since moving there and forming jazz-funk-punk group Material in 1979. He has appeared either as performer or studio technician on hundreds of albums, as diverse as works by Laurie Anderson, Bootsy Collins, Mot rhead and the magnificent Fela Kuti. His breakthrough came with production of Herbie Hancock's Future Shock in 1983. A particularly interesting project is with Tabla Beat Science, his collaboration with percussionists Tril ...