This is a different sort of compendium album from most. In the first place every single track on both discs was personally selected by Carlos Santana. Second, he drew on music the guitarist and his sidemen had recorded for three different labels: Columbia, Polydor/PolyGrm, and Arista/BMG. Then the favored tracks were assembled onto one disc of vocals and a second disc entirely of instrumentals. Santana also supervised overdubs to five of the tracks in the collection.
The general thrust was to select a soundscape of moods and feelings from many of his historic albums, with an emphasis on the meditative power of much of his work. The collection includes Samba Pa Ti, which was on the B-side of their big hi Oye Como Va. Let There Be Light comes from a 1990 album and features vocalist Alex Legertwood. Milagro comes from a 1992 PolyGram album which had tributes to four of Santana’s inspirations: John Coltrane, Gil Evans, Marvin Gaye, and Bob Marley. The great instrumental El Farol comes from Santana’s first album for Arista, in 1999, Supernatural. That album was an industry phenomenon, staying 102 weeks on the Billboard chart, 15-times RIAA platinum in the U.S. alone and the sixth best-selling album in the history of Scoundscan.
The remastering is an improvement on some of the earlier tracks, and Legacy has kindly furnished very readable lyrics for all of the vocals in the 28-track set. Here are the details – Santana fans will want to have this one unless they own every single previous album from the band’s career.
TrackList, Disc 1:
1. Let There Be Light (Album Version)
2. Brotherhood (Album Version)
3. Spirit (Album Version)
4. Right Now (Album Version)
5. Life Is For Living (Album Version)
6. Saja/Right On (Album Version)
7. Somewhere In Heaven (Album Version)
8. I Believe It’s Time
9. Serpents And Doves
10. Your Touch (Album Version)
11. I’ll Be Waiting (Album Version)
12. The River (Album Version)
13. Bailando/Aquatic Park (Album Version)
14. Praise (Album Version)
Disc 2:
1. Curación (Sunlight On Water)
2. Aqua Marine (Album Version)
3. Bella (Album Version)
4. Love Is You (Album Version)
5. Full Moon (Album Version)
6. Blues Latino (Album Version)
7. Samba Pa’ Ti (Album Version)
8. Europa (Earth’s Cry Heaven’s Smile) (Album Version)
9. El Farol
10. En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor (Album Version)
11. Luz, Amore Y Vida (Album Version)
12. I Love You Much Too Much (Album Version)
13. Blues For Salvador (Album Version)
14. Victory Is Won
– John Henry
