VOICES OF LATIN ROCK – MICHAEL SHRIEVE –

“A Conversation with Michael Shrieve – Part 2″

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PEKKA RANTA (in Finland):Hi Michael! I am a huge fan of Doug Rauch. How was he as a bassist, from a drummer’s point of view? Did you stay in touch or work with him after you both departed from Santana? You and Doug on “Caravanserai”, “Welcome” and “Lotus” produced some of the best and most exciting rhythm section work ever…thank you! Doug was an amazing musician. Do you have any special memories that you want to share of working with this sorely-missed individual?
MICHAEL: I met Doug on the “Soul to Soul” trip to Accra, Ghana in Africa in 1971. I was with Santana and Doug was playing with a group called the Voices of East Harlem. What I remember is standing on the side of the stage and talking with Doug about funk music and funk drummers, in particular Bernard Purdie and David Garibaldi. He was a huge fan of the new funk scene, which included the Ohio Players, Kool and the Gang and others. He was completely into this music and we talked for quite a while. David Garibaldi was a good friend of mine, and his band Tower of Power were really happening in the Bay Area. In fact David lived with me at the time. I invited Doug to come out to the Bay Area, which he did, and he moved in with me. He got a gig with a band called The Loading Zone, which Tom Coster played organ in. 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. Doug started to be known around the scene as a super-funky player by guys like Garibaldi and Mike Clark, who later played with Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters. In Santana we ended up encountering some problems with David Brown’s drug use, which debilitated him and his playing, so Dougie became a member of Santana. Doug’s joining us also had to do with the fact that Carlos was really 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. Doug was always a sharp dresser and almost exclusively wore velvet suits with his red shades and huge afro. He was very cool. Kind of super cool, actually, with strong opinions about everything from music to cars (Citroen) to drinking water (Perrier)! Doug enjoyed a good relationship with Gregg Errico, the drummer from Sly and the Family Stone, and they did some recordings together with Michael Carabello’s group “Attitude.” Doug was a dear friend and a real inspiration. Unfortunately he got into heroin and eventually died of an overdose, which shocked and saddened us all.
OSCAR:
On a technical level as a drummer, what was it like to “lock in” with Doug on Santana tours?
MICHAEL: Playing and locking in with Doug Rauch was like being on a train. A Bullet Train! Everything was based off of 16th notes, primarily, and then the 16th notes would be accented, and this is where that thick funk came in. His playing was constant 16th notes but felt really good and drove the music forward. –Propelled– the music forward!
PIERROT, VICENTE M. & MC:
Do you remember where the recording of the “Caravanserai“ album took place? As those sessions progressed, were you aware of the ethereal, universal and timeless sound taking shape on the new album? Despite it being a turbulent time for the band, there must have been many incredible moments during the making of “Caravanserai.“ Can you share a few of them?
MICHAEL: The recording took place at the CBS Folsom Street Studios, I believe. Recording the intro to “Eternal Caravan of Reincarnation” and piecing that together was fun. I wanted crickets and the sound of the stillness of night to open the record, so engineer Glenn Kolotkin went home and recorded crickets outside of his house and brought them into the studio. We also got the sound of a brook or a stream. Then I had Hadley Caliman come in and just play for a long time, just harmonic tones and things on the sax, and then I edited it into what you hear. That little sax intro alone took over twenty edits…that’s cutting tape editing, not Pro-Tools! Then the sound of Tom Rutley’s bass and the jazz-feel ride cymbal set the tone, with cymbal swells and tuned metallic sounds… gentle, with Wendy Haas coming in on Fender Rhodes with vibrato. The whole vibe is copped from “Astral Traveling,” the lead track from Pharoah Sanders’ record “Thembi.” From there, the intro to “Waves Within” featured some kind of filter that Dougie Rauch set up. “Waves Within” was Dougie’s baby, even though Gregg Rolie contributed some changes to it. The odd time signature, the vibe was Doug Rauch. Doug was completely into odd times at this point, being a Mahavishnu fan, but all you have to do is go to the next track, “Look Up (To See What’s Coming Down)” to hear where he was at with his funk playing. Doug was WAY ahead of his time, and was a true innovator on the instrument. “Future Primitive” was Chepito and Mingo, but the soundscape behind it was my idea and had me playing piano, vibes (backwards on tape) and cymbal swells. That piece goes into “Stone Flower” with the same atmosphere. By the time of “Caravanserai” I was really into Brazilian music and Antonio Carlos Jobim. We had been in Europe touring and one night after a show I had put on a Jobim record and had written lyrics to “Stone Flower.” I think Tom Rutley sounds really great on “Stone Flower.” Gregg Rolie, bless his heart, put up with Carlos and I all up in his face trying to get him to play B3 Organ like Larry Young! And you know what? He sounds fabulous! Wendy is there again on electric piano, and Carlos is playing both cuica and agogo bells. Arrangement-wise and sound-wise, “Stone Flower” was all me and Carlos, and Carlos and I did the vocals. “La Fuente Del Ritmo” also has some of my favorite drum playing. “Caravanserai” was Carlos’ and my baby conceptually, and I believe that we drove everyone crazy doing it! When Clive Davis visited the studio to hear what we were doing he couldn’t believe it and said something like “You’re committing career suicide.”
MC, OSCAR & PJ:
Your composition “Every Step Of The Way” is such a powerful piece of music, and was truly awesome when performed live. Many of us at the Café consider it one of Santana’s crowning achievements. Do you recall how you were inspired to write this masterpiece? Opening with an “In A Silent Way”-like groove and closing with colors that evoke “Sketches of Spain,” did you envision this song as a tribute to Miles? Is there anything notable about the recording session and/or preparation for that track that you can share with us?
MICHAEL: Thank you again. I’m playing “Every Step Of The Way” again with my new band Spellbinder and will release a live recording of it soon. Well, the first half of the tune was completely informed and inspired by the “In a Silent Way” vibe, but also other Tony Williams material and style. On the second half you are close with the “Sketches of Spain” reference, because it’s all about Gil Evans, who arranged the whole “Sketches of Spain” project for Mile Davis. We had recorded ”Every Step Of The Way” with the band, and had Hadley Caliman come in to play that intense, hard Jeremy Steig-style breathy flute solo. We had two more tracks left to use and I asked Tom Harrell to put together an orchestra and write an arrangement that sounded like a cross between “Las Vegas Tango” by Gil Evans and “Sketches of Spain”. It was exciting. We had never had an orchestra play on anything before, although we did have that television experience with Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which was somewhat of a disaster. Carlos played beautifully on “Every Step of the Way” and in retrospect should have shared in the writing credit because his melodies were so strong.
MC:
Michael, drummers can be unsung heroes, carrying the whole band on their shoulders while the front men (such as a compelling lead guitarist, for example) get most of the attention. Even so, Santana fans can’t help but to have noticed your tasty and spectacular drumming on a long list of tracks including “Flame-Sky,” “Song of the Wind,” and “Toussaint l’Overture,” going all the way back to “Soul Sacrifice.” Which of your Santana drum tracks are you proudest of?
MICHAEL: Thank you so much. I like “Song of the Wind” and “Yours is the Light” with Flora Purim singing, and I like “La Fuente Del Ritmo.” There’s a funny story behind “Song of the Wind”. Carlos and Neal both played beautifully on that track…they both excel in that mode. I was getting tired of the fact that once the drums are down, which is done live with the group, Carlos and Neal could go in and overdub and punch in their guitar solos and make them just how they wanted them. They could make these perfect little masterpieces by punching in after the fact. Well, I loved what they played on this tune, but felt that I could do a much better drum part if I could redo mine. I could play to their solos and make it sound more cohesive. I was trying play in a Jack DeJohnette style and was really influenced by his playing on the Freddie Hubbard recording of “First Light.” Carlos was into “First Light” as well. So, I decided I wanted to redo the drum track on “Song of the Wind.” I spoke to the engineer, Glenn Kolotkin, when no one else was around and told him what I wanted to do. He said that if I messed up the whole song would be unusable. Still, I went home to my place on Bay Street where I had built a small 8×10 soundproof practice room, took a cassette copy of the tune from the studio and practiced it all night to get it just right. I was determined to get a really great, expressive drum track on that tune. Wendy Haas and I were living together there at the time, and we recently reminisced about that period. Wendy remembers the “Song of the Wind” incident and says I was a “maniac,” in the kindest way of course! The next day I went in to the studio before the other guys got there and said to Kolotkin “I want to do this.” He was freaking out, and didn’t want to take the responsibility of ruining this track that Carlos and Neal were both so proud of. Needless to say, I cut the track and that’s what is there today.
RALPH (in New Zealand) & MC:
Hi Michael; thanks for taking the time for doing this. I read in Simon Leng & Etienne Houben’s article “30 Years Ago Caravanserai” that Santana recorded the Michel Colombier composition “Wings” during the “Caravanserai” sessions. I also remember reading that you have the master tape. Is there any chance of “Wings” seeing the light of day? Why wasn’t “Wings” added to the Columbia/Legacy “Caravanserai” reissue as a bonus track?
MICHAEL: I don’t know about that, honestly. I don’t have the master tape, and will have to ask Carlos about this. I know we used to play it live. Is it on any CD? I forget. I remember the tune, the melody. The album was called” Wings” and maybe the song was called “For Those Who Cannot Hear.” 
[ed: “Wings” was on some of Santana’s live set lists in 1972, and may also have been known as “Earth.” Michel Colombier’s 1971 LP “Wings,” described as a symphonic pop/jazz concept piece, included tracks entitled “Earth” and “For Those Who Cannot Hear.”].
VICENTE M.:
Elvin Jones’ drum style is all over “Caravanserai.” Was that something that brought happiness and joy to your heart?
MICHAEL: Elvin Jones, Jack DeJohnette, Tony Williams, Roy Haynes, those were the guys that informed my playing then and still do today.
MC:
You’ve revealed that it was Carlos who brought his “mean cuica playing” to “Stone Flower,” not Airto, as has been rumored. Still, Airto was around Santana during the recording of “Welcome” and “Borboletta.” Can you tell us about your interactions with Airto over the years, and your feelings about the contributions he’s made to the music world?
MICHAEL: I’ve been a fan of Airto since his early solo album “Seeds On The Ground,” the one where he’s buried in the sand on the cover. I’m still playing Airto’s tune “Xibaba (Shebaba),” in my group Spellbinder, it’s a song that we played in Santana [ed. “Xibaba” appeared on the “Lotus” album]. On that track Airto plays a samba with his bass drum and a 6/8 on his cymbal and snare drum. I just played it last night! I not only love Airto’s percussion playing, but the way he plays the drum set, too, and like to think that he has influenced me. Airto’s drumming on the first Return To Forever album “Light As a Feather” was some of the most beautiful drumming I had ever heard…such a unique touch on the drums, and of course his playing with Miles on stuff like “Live-Evil” was so great. Watching Airto doing solo work now is so powerful that it’s like watching a true Shaman at his spiritual peak. Even though I don’t see Airto and Flora nearly enough as I would like to, I truly feel a bond and kinship with them both.

FROM MC:
Azteca’s debut album liner notes acknowledge your “great drums in the beginning.” “VOLR” mentions you and Neal Schon performing with Azteca for a crowd of 40,000 in San Diego. Were you and Neal both original Azteca members, and was there a time that you envisioned leaving Santana to play full time with Azteca? What can you tell us about the formation of Azteca, and were your ties with Wendy Haas, Coke & Pete Escovedo, Victor Pantoja, Tom Harrell and Mel Martin key to your involvement with that band?
MICHAEL: I think I did some rehearsals in the early days of Azteca, but don’t recall what gigs I played with them, and I definitely don’t remember playing a huge gig like that. I wasn’t involved with the formation of the band, and it wasn’t my intention to join them… I don’t think I was asked to. I was very aware of the whole thing being put together by Coke and Pete Escovedo, though, particularly since I was living with Wendy Haas and they asked her to be in the band. Lenny White was Azteca’s first drummer and then Terry Bozzio. Lenny was always over at our house, was always hanging out in the studio with Santana whenever he was in town. We were best friends back then, and we’ve just reconnected again recently, which is really nice. There was a lot of energy going on around the formation of Azteca, a lot of intention. Lenny was really into it. Their conga drummer Victor Pantoja was Michael Carabello’s dear friend, and had played on those great Gabor Szabo records that we all loved. Tom Harrell and Mel Martin were simply some of the best players in the area at that time, and Pete and Coke wanted the best for their band.
MC & VICENTE M.:
Can you tell us of the significance of the name Maitreya that you adopted in the 70’s? You seemed to be on a spiritual quest that coincided with Carlos’ turn toward matters of the spirit and his decision to follow Sri Chinmoy. Were you a Sri Chinmoy disciple? If so, for how long, and what made you leave that lifestyle?
MICHAEL: Maitreya was the name given to me by Swami Satchidananda, who was my spiritual teacher, or guru. The name Maitreya means something like “loving kindness”. So, I was a disciple of Satchidananda, not Sri Chimnoy. Carlos and I had both been reading books by Paramahansa Yogananda. We were both meditating, trying to find an alternative to the rock and roll lifestyle. People were getting buggy and druggy all around us, and we had been getting buggy and druggy! It was strange and surreal. So we were looking for another way. We were like brothers in arms about this, and were basically looking for gurus at the same time. We went Guru shopping together! I assume that Carlos leaned toward Sri Chinmoy because John McLaughlin was with him, and I know John had spoken to him at length about it. Maybe Carlos was thinking, “Damn, if it makes John play like that, I’ll take some too, please, thank you very much!” I was with Carlos when he visited Sri Chinmoy for the first time. It was the day before we were headed to Europe, and we were in New York. We went out to visit Sri Chinmoy and we went to a small meditation room and waited for him. He came out and sat on a raised dais and began meditating in front of us. The room was filled with a white light. It was very strong, very powerful. We sat there for about half an hour and then left. In the car on the way back to the city, Carlos said, “Man, I think I’m going to go with him. That was really incredible! What do you think?” I said, “Yeah, it was really powerful, but I’m not convinced he’s my guy.” They say when you are looking for a guru you will know when you find him. Although Sri Chinmoy was very powerful, and was running marathons, painting a thousand paintings a day, writing a symphony a day, and doing all these superhuman things, it just didn’t resonate for me. I don’t know why, it just didn’t, so I went with my instincts. Later I met Swami Satchidananda and it just felt right. He seemed like an old friend, like a kindler, gentler guru, if you will! For years I was with him, and eventually it just kind of receded into the background of my life. It was all good, and it still affects parts of my everyday life. There was no falling out or anything dramatic, it just faded away. I’ll always be grateful for the experience. The spiritual path was never distant for me. I wanted to be a priest when I was younger, and was seriously considering going to a seminary after high school. My brother Rich did that. I used to ride my bicycle to Mass every morning at 6:30 AM before school when I was in grade school. I wanted to be a Missionary and work in South America. My patron saint wasn’t even a saint yet, Blessed Martin de Porres from Lima, Peru. Now he is a Saint, and I almost got to visit where he lived when I was in Lima last year with Carlos, but it didn’t happen. The point is, this wasn’t unusual behavior for me, wanting to be on a spiritual path.
SCOTT E:
You were an essential part of composing songs with Carlos for “Caravanserai“ and “Welcome.“ Carlos was asked what his inspiration was for the “Caravanserai“ album and his answer was, “….learning to embark into the inner discovery of the divine in all of us”. What would you say –your– source of inspiration was during those sessions?
MICHAEL: Like I said before, it was the music around us that inspired me to want more than Rock and Roll music or the Rock and Roll lifestyle. I was excited to be a part of what was happening in the new jazz territories, and I was searching for spiritual fulfillment as well as musical fulfillment. A fundamental change needed to occur in order to move toward a new way of looking at everything around us.
MC: 
I love your quote about lyrics: “Lyrics are the recognition of common emotions that resonate with people. They give acknowledgement and dignity to what we go through in life.” You made several songwriting contributions to “Caravanserai,” “Welcome” and “Borboletta,” and your words to “Stone Flower,” “When I Look Into Your Eyes,” and “Yours Is the Light” stand out as particularly beautiful and poetic. You also sang on “Stone Flower.” Did Santana ever play the vocal version of “Stone Flower” on stage, or did you always perform it as an instrumental? Have there been any post-Santana projects other than Automatic Man that have featured your song lyrics and/or vocalizing, and do you envision any in the future?

MICHAEL: I’m glad you enjoy the lyrics, thank you. Like I said earlier, I love writing lyrics to existing songs with beautiful melodies…I still do it. Recently, the singer Greta Matassa recorded Pat Metheny’s song “If I Could” which I wrote lyrics to, and that worked out well. Pat liked it too. I’ve written lyrics to a couple of Bill Frisell tunes, as well as to the “Theme from the Deerhunter” and verses for Chepito’s tune “Baila Mi Cha Cha” from Abraxas Pool. I’ve also been writing lyrics for another band of mine in Seattle, Tangletown, and many of those lyrics have been more political in nature. I think I’ll be doing a lot more lyric writing in the future. As for my singing, the vocal I did with Carlos on “Stone Flower” was nothing to write home about, but still I think it would have sounded better a little up in the mix and not so buried. I believe we only played the instrumental version of “Stone Flower” live. On my first solo project, which has never been released, I sang a ballad in a duet with Wendy where I sound like Barry White! I’m not kidding! Will I be doing any more singing? No! No! I’m not a singer in reality! Only in my mind when I write the lyrics.
PIERROT & MC:
Michael, what songs did you record on the Carlos Santana/John McLaughlin album “Love Devotion Surrender” [ed: hereafter referred to as “LDS“], and what was that experience like? Did you play alongside another drummer at some points during the session? Was “A Love Supreme” one of your tracks, and if so was recording that classic a big thrill for you as a Coltrane fan?
MICHAEL: I played on “A Love Supreme“ and I forget what else. I’m not happy with my playing on that record at all! I was in a weird place at the time, an “I’m not worthy“ kind of place, and I think it shows in my playing.
MC & PIERROT:
Carlos and Doug Rauch toured with John McLaughlin for about six weeks in 1973, taking Billy Cobham to fill the drum chair. Why weren’t you a part of that “LDS“ tour, and were you disappointed not to have gone? Did that time off from Santana give you an opportunity to think, relax, recharge?
MICHAEL: Dougie and Carlos were complete Mahavishnu freaks, so when the opportunity came for them to play with Billy Cobham and John McLaughlin they were thrilled, and I was happy for them as well. I wasn’t jealous or disappointed in a way that I felt sorry for myself, I just don’t think like that.
PIERROT: 
What was it like to work with John McLaughlin on the “Welcome“ album?
MICHAEL: It was just the one track, “Flame-Sky,“ and it was great. John always brought such a powerful and positive vibration to any situation he was in, and this was no different.
MC:
“VOLR” calls you “mastermind, along with Carlos, of the “Caravanserai”/“Welcome”/ “Lotus” album trilogy.” Tom Coster has said that you were “an authoritative figure” in the New Santana Band “but in a…pleasant and gentle manner.” Tom went on to say “Mike worked really hard for the band to be successful.” What role had you taken on in the band at this time…what tasks and responsibilities?
MICHAEL: I took on anything and everything I could. I had a lot to say about the music, primarily. I was an instigator of, or at least co-architect of, a lot of the music that we played live in the band at that time. We had made our bed with “Caravanserai,” and now we were sleeping in it! Well, anything but sleeping! That band was an incredible band. The two keyboards of Tom Coster and Richard Kermode were just smokin’! Richard had that Latin thing down, and the Brazilian thing, and Tom had complete jazz chops and was open to me and Carlos still bugging the organ player to sound like Larry Young at times! Tom contributed a lot to the band. Dougie was killing it on bass, and you had Armando Peraza and Chepito Areas on percussion. Leon Thomas was on vocals, which was a little strange, but that was my doing. I made the call to Leon after hearing him sing “The Creator Has a Master Plan” on a Pharoah Sanders record. Gregg was gone, and we needed a singer, so I called Leon out to do the “Welcome” album and it just went from there. I think Carlos and I were both playing at a high level during this period as well.
FROM MC:
In the 1970’s, Armando Peraza was likely to appear at any San Francisco nightclub sharply dressed in one of his many hats, looking for a chance to dance or sit in. Can you tell us what it was like to know and jam with this master drummer, percussion innovator, and colorful personality?
MICHAEL: There is nobody like Armando Peraza. He was always a gentleman of the highest order, a man with incredible gifts, talent and energy, and yes, he can dance! He’s the kindest man, but don’t mess with him, because I think he may have boxed professionally at one time. I remember once we were in Australia, and Armando was always a bit of an insomniac. So one night he calls my room after a show and asks me if I want to go out. I said yes, and we went to a nightclub not far from the hotel. Armando is a great “people watcher” and just enjoys observing people. We’re in this club, and he’s probably 20 years older than anyone in the place. Some big guys were standing near us and one of them came up next to us and made a comment to Armando that I couldn’t hear. The next thing I know, this guy is on the floor, writhing in pain! He had made a racial comment to Armando and before the guy could blink Armando had decked him! Don’t mess with Armando!
SCOTT E:
Michael, when I was discharged from the service in 1974 I was like many other Vietnam War vets, pretty lost and uncertain about my future. The “Borboletta” album helped me find direction in my life. “Life Is Anew”, written by you and Carlos, was the song dearest to my heart. What was your inspiration in creating this album in general, and particularly that one track?

MICHAEL: Thanks for your question Scott, and I’m happy that the music provided some kind of solace for you after such turbulent times. “Life is Anew” and “Give and Take” were the only tunes that I did any writing on for “Borboletta.” I had written some of the lyrics to “Life Is Anew” and some of the music to “Give and Take” with Carlos and Tom Coster. The thing about “Borboletta,” aside from the great instrumental stuff, was Leon Patillo’s singing, and his song “Mirage” I really liked as well. Leon was, and still is, a really great singer coming from that gospel place, but not straight gospel. It was fun working on that material with Leon and Tom Coster, and with David Brown playing bass. Things were changing in the band and it was a bit of a difficult time for me, but I still love all of the music on Borboletta. Even the tracks I didn’t play on, like “Aspirations,” I really love, and Carlos and I always loved “Promise of a Fisherman” by Dori Caymmi, a Brazilian writer. That song was from a great Sergio Mendes record called “Primal Roots.” “Borboletta” is a really wonderful record. 
[ed: Dorival Caymmi, composer of “Promise Of A Fisherman” (“Promessa De Pescador”), is the father of currently active Brazilian singer/songwriter Dori Caymmi.]
PJ, MC & LISA MERCADO:
Michael, you quit Santana in August ’74 on the even of the “Borboletta” tour. When the news broke, we fans were saddened. Your departure signaled a major transition, and for many of us it marked the end of rare artistic heights and music so incredibly special. Although Ndugu is a great player, we felt disoriented when he came out on stage in your place. You told Simon Leng that health issues and your desire to concentrate on your solo projects brought this decision to a head. Could dissatisfaction with Santana’s stylistic and personnel changes during the months between the “Lotus” tour and “Borboletta” have contributed? Had playing in or even co-leading Santana become less fulfilling than it once was? Were there any other significant factors in your exit? Of the “Woodstock era” Santana lineup, your partnership with Carlos was the longest and closest. Was your announcement devastating for Carlos or was he already resigned to your leaving and to his taking on a sole leadership role in the band, assisted by Tom Coster?
MICHAEL: Carlos and I had been a team, wide-eyed and with the freshness of new explorers, and I was a team player as much as I could possibly be, but by this time things had evolved into something else altogether. Carlos is notoriously hell on drummers, and it had now become obvious that Carlos wanted it his way. His assertiveness had become forcefulness, and it frankly it wasn’t fun anymore. I knew I was going to leave at some point soon, but didn’t know when. Then there was an incident that made my mind up for me. I woke up one night with an incredible pain in my lower back, pain like I’d never known. I could hardly move. My brother Kevin was living with me at the time, and I got out of bed and literally crawled down to his room and begged him to take me to the hospital. We got in the car and the pain was so excruciating, I really thought I was going to die. I made a promise to myself right then and there that if I woke up in the morning, I would do the things I’ve been meaning to do. So it turned out that I had kidney stones and they said that the pain of kidney stones is only comparable to childbirth. The next day, I knew what I had to do. I called the Santana office and said that I wouldn’t be going on the tour that was being booked now. They said, “The dates are booked, you can’t leave now!”, but I had made a promise to myself on what I had imagined to be my deathbed, so my mind was made up. I know it threw a real wrench in everything, but I was not going to budge. It was time to move on. It was time to leave the band. I don’t know what my departure meant to Carlos. He came to the hospital and asked me why I was doing what I was doing, and I told him it was just time for me to leave. It wasn’t done at all with any animosity toward Carlos whatsoever. Anything that had happened was really OK. I think it was just the natural order of things. There comes a time, and it was now.
MC:
In 1974 you recorded a never-released solo album “Blessings In Disguise,” recruiting Wendy, Kevin, Michael Henderson, Todd “Bayete” Cochrane and Patrick Gleeson to play a mix of of soul, bop, funk, ethnic music, electronica and experimental sounds. The personnel and influences sound fascinating. What else can you tell us about the project, and might you ever release it?
MICHAEL: I sang funk and Motown on that record, including that duet with Wendy I mentioned earlier! I worked closely with Michael Henderson on “Blessings In Disguise.” He was playing bass with Miles Davis at the time and was also an incredible singer. [ed: readers may remember Henderson’s vocal hits “Valentine Love” and “You Are My Starship.”] 
Miles heard our tapes through Michael and hired Kevin’s friend, Sam Morrison, who had played sax on the record. Earl Klugh was also on it, and Pat Gleeson did a beautiful semi-classical piece that was written by Stomu Yamashta, whose music I was already interested in. That was before polyphonic synthesis was around, so Pat had to simulate every instrument on these huge EMU synthesizers that took up the whole wall. In the end, the label, Columbia refused to put it out, saying it was too ethnic and too electronic! It was a bit scattered, I admit! Sony has the rights now, and I don’t suspect they will be releasing it. If I dig up a copy, maybe I’ll post some on my website.
MC & PJ:
How did you feel in the months after quitting Santana? Was it a relief for you, or a letdown? Was there any second-guessing or regret?
MICHAEL: I was a bit lost and a bit relieved. I went to Mexico for a month to a health spa and got really fit and healthy. It was the right thing to do and I didn’t regret it. I think in retrospect, it was maybe what Carlos wanted as well. I was the last of the original band, and maybe he wanted to be free of all of it at that point.
FROM MC:
Stomu Yamashta’s Go, featuring yourself, Al Di Meola and Klaus Schulze, made two excellent studio records in the mid-70’s, plus a live album. The first studio session bore the prominent mark of Steve Winwood. The second (entitled “Go Too,” one of my personal favorites) brought bassist Paul Jackson (of Azteca and Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters) on board, along with vocalists Jess Roden and Linda Lewis. I remember reading a glowing concert review from the “Go Too” tour…that band seemed to have achieved the perfect blend of jazz fusion, soul and rock, with electronic and classical tinges. What was it like to be involved in Stomu’s Go projects? Go would have seemed to be both progressive and commercially viable, so what do you think kept the group from having a longer run and greater success?

MICHAEL:I had begun listening to Stomu Yamashta recordings somewhere around 1971. I was always looking for interesting drummers or percussionists, and I was not afraid of experimental stuff. I was at a record store in Berkley and found this album that had the big gatefold where it opens up, and there was a picture of this Japanese guy leaping in mid-air with a tympani stick in his mouth, hair halfway down his back, and a stage full of percussion instruments all around him. I bought all the records they had of his, brought them home, put them on and loved them. Stomu’s music was very different than anything I had ever heard, so I sought him out, putting out inquiries, trying to contact his management. I think it was the last day of a 250-day tour, and I finally met him in Rome. We were staying in the same hotel. I went to Stomu’s room and he answered the door…a short guy, but with so much command and stature! “Yes,” he says, “may I help you?” I introduced myself and he said yes, of course, he had heard that I had been trying to get in touch. He was very proper and formal Japanese, but I had seen pictures of him playing and knew that he was very dramatic in the way he approached the instruments. Even tympani he played really dramatically, stooping low, with his face right down to the drumhead, and leaping and things like that. Anyway before the night was over, we were listening to music and we were both on the floor gesticulating and laughing and just having a great time. Stomu and I really hit it off, and decided to see if there was something we could do together. I wanted to do something with percussion and as it turned out, he wanted to do something in the rock/pop world, but –his– way, meaning a bit more experimental than normal. You also have to understand a bit of background with Stomu. Celebrated European composers like Han Werner Henze were composing pieces for him and he was on the verge of real fame as a timpanist and classical percussionist, but gave that up to start an experimental Japanese Theater Company called “Red Buddha Theater.” He was selling out The Roundhouse Theater in London for weeks at a time…huge Japanese puppets, lasers, very “theatrical.” So, Stomu said he had approached Steve Winwood who was up for doing something a bit different, and he told me about a German electronic synthesis master named Klaus Schulze. Stomu wanted to work with Al Dimeola as well, who I knew from when he first joined Return to Forever at age nineteen…Al was always up at my house with Lenny White. So the Go project was put together and I went to London to do it. I actually moved to London for about six months, because it turned out that my new band Automatic Man was just signed to Island Records, which was the same label Stomu was on, and the plan was that Automatic Man would work on our album around the same time as Stomu’s Go project. Sometimes I was running back and forth between two studios doing both those records. It was great. It was a pleasure to meet and work with Steve Winwood, who was always a real gentleman, and Stomu was a delight, and a real dynamo as well!
What I learned from Stomu is that if you do interesting things, interesting people will be attracted to it, and I was looking for interesting people…I was looking to broaden my horizons in terms of people. Stomu always had filmmakers, musicians, dancers, fashion people coming around. He seemed to be aware of so many aspects of culture and was very open to it all. It didn’t change his musical choices, but his being aware of so much that was going around him culturally informed him in his choices for production and vision. We played a couple of big shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Palais des Sport in Paris, which is where the “Live Go” album was recorded. The show featured lasers, orchestra, dancers, it was a big production and was the talk of the town. Jimmy Page was there, Eric Clapton, a bunch of people. It was wonderful. I was using my Impakt electronic drums doing some things with Klaus. Pat Thrall from Automatic Man also played guitar along with Al Dimeola. It was great. “Go Too” was a whole other ball game. Yes, it was great playing with Paul Jackson. I love our playing together on that record. Pat Gleeson took Klaus’ place. Al Dimeola played on the record. My brother Kevin did the tour and sounded great. Jess Roden was a great white soul singer from England. Stomu had new management, a new record label, Arista, which was Clive Davis. It was good but not as exciting for me as the whole first record and “Go Live.”
MC:
Michael, you’ve said that at this point you “wanted to prove yourself outside of Santana, in terms of public acceptance.” In addition to your work with Yamashta, the mid-to-late 70’s found you involved with a couple of band projects that had the potential to help you do that. You’ve mentioned Automatic Man, which played some intriguing progressive funk-rock, and you had a later balled called Novo Combo which was a good, tight, reggae-influenced new wave group (as can be heard on the Wolfgang’s Vault concert tapes). Somehow, neither group broke through. Did a frustration with the group dynamic and the vagaries of the pop music industry motivate you to focus on your solo career and to turn toward electronic music and jazz?
MICHAEL: Yes, in a word! I put a lot into Automatic Man. We had great players, Pat Thrall on guitar, Bayete Todd Cochran, a genius on keyboards, David Rice on bass at first, then Doni Harvey. We rehearsed every single day at my house in San Francisco, I bought instruments for everybody, my girlfriend at the time, Maria Ysmael, cooked wonderful dinners every single night. Thank you, Maria! We moved to London to do the record, which we were really excited about. We just couldn’t seem to get it together live, though. We had a falling out and the rest of the band moved to LA and made another record without me, and that was that. After that I moved to New York City and put Novo Combo together, I think I was trying to prove that I could have a hit record outside of Santana, because I obviously had not learned my lesson yet! I really enjoyed the band: Steven Dees on bass, Pete Hewlett on guitar and vocals, great singer, and Jack Griffith on guitar, a wonderful conceptual player. I wanted to make sure that this band played live as much as possible, which I felt was one of the mistakes with Automatic Man. Novo Combo gigged frequently in New York City, playing anywhere and everywhere. Pete Townshend became a fan and invited us to open for The Who. We did two records. I wanted to play differently than I did with Automatic Man and I started playing more in a Santana groove, but without the Santana music. Some of it sounded too much like The Police. I was playing a lot of fast rim stuff and four on the floor bass drum which, to my chagrin, was compared to Stewart Copeland! Then some of the guys started writing material that really started sounding like The Police, who were brand new on the scene, and singing like Sting too. A couple of those records became semi-popular, and that was the kiss of death, because we were like a little mini-Police, and I didn’t want that. I don’t know, one thing led to another, the second record didn’t sound anything like the first. We had Carlos Rios playing guitar on the second one, who is beautiful player, but I gave up too much control, and it sounded too sterile to me. It fell apart, and naturally, I got sued by the manager for money that he had put into the band, It’s a high risk business! What are you going to do, sue me for not being successful with this group? Yes! The Novo Combo experience made me realize that I didn’t want any more of these kinds of bands where the stakes are so high and everything rests on how many records you sell. I asked myself “What are you thinking?” You’re doing everything that you didn’t want to do! Where is the experimenting? Where is the pure love of music for music’s sake? So I didn’t put together another band until almost twenty years later with Tangletown, but by that time I realized it wasn’t going to be a pure democracy anymore!

VICENTE M.:
Michael, my questions have to do with The Police and your cross-influences with that great band. I loved the reggae feel that you put into “Samba Pa Ti” on the “Lotus” album. So, I assume that reggae is something that you were into long before The Police? I hear a “Caravanserai” and “Welcome” tone to The Police’s overall sound…have The Police ever credited you and Santana as influences? Novo Combo was a band that could easily be labeled as a Police-influenced group. Was that something that you discussed with your Novo Combo band mates beforehand?
MICHAEL: I really can’t say there was a connection with The Police. I was never really into reggae music during that period that “Lotus” was recorded. I don’t think I had even heard it then! I spoke about my problems with Novo Combo sounding too much like The Police in the last question. It was not something I wanted! I was and still am a big fan of The Police, though, and each of the guys individually. Andy Summers played on my “Stiletto” album along with David Torn on the guitar, and I toured with Andy a bit as well. We are friends. Any similarity, as far as I know, is coincidence. I really don’t think Santana influenced them to the extent you are saying. I could be wrong of course. Sting is a fan of Carlos, I know. [ed: Michael also played on the “Blue Note Plays Sting” CD project]
MC:
You worked with electronic musician Klaus Schulze on several projects in your post-Santana years, including your first solo release “Transfer Station Blue.” How did Klaus impact you? Was he coming from a totally different place than other musicians you had played with, and was he a catalyst in your interest in electronic and experimental sounds?
MICHAEL: I was already interested in some of that stuff, but yes, Klaus was a horse of another color! Working with Klaus in Stomu’s group was great, and a real revelation to me musically. I had never heard anything like the things he was doing, and he wasn’t like any other musician I had ever met, except maybe Patrick Gleeson. Klaus had this huge setup of synths and would get these beautiful pulsing sequences going, and then come in on top with these gorgeous, lush chords and melodies, and all self-contained, at that. I was enthralled. Later, I started getting into his records, and there was one in particular called “X” that was really great. There were several pieces that had those big powerful sequences going and I was listening and loved it. Then the drums came in and I was really let down, deflated. I felt that the drum parts really left something to be desired, and that I could contribute in that area to make Klaus’ work even better, so I called him and asked him if we could do some recording together. So I went over to his place in Germany with my brother Kevin and we recorded “Transfer Station Blue”. It was a great experience, and I went back several times and recorded on some of his projects as well.
MC:
You’ve said that you like to listen to choral or classical music late at night, that it calms you and puts you “in a meditative space.“ Igor Stravinsky’s work was said to have been one of your inspirations on “Caravanserai,” and you have expressed admiration for percussionists from the classical world such as Stomu Yamashta and Evelyn Glennie. Can you tell us more about the role of classical music in your musical development and your musical future?
MICHAEL: Well, I’ve always loved choral music, from Gregorian chants to English choral music to the Bulgarian singers, and I’ve dabbled in my listening to classical music, which came to life in part due to recommendations from my brother Rich. Rich has turned me on to beautiful classical music in the past, Like Leonard Bernstein’s “Age of Anxiety”, and certain Stravinsky pieces. I’ve always made it a point to listen to percussion ensemble music as well. Stomu turned me on to a lot of things, and when I first heard Evelyn Glennie’s work I fell in love with her.
FROM MC:
You’ve composed soundtrack music for a number of films and TV programs. Which are you proudest of, and why?
MICHAEL: I suppose “The Bedroom Window,” which Curtis Hanson directed, was my favorite. I did that with the help and guidance of Patrick Gleeson, who was more experienced in film music. I don’t really consider myself a film composer by any stretch of the imagination, but I have participated in a few.
MC:
Michael, can you talk about your work and relationship with the Rolling Stones? You reportedly did some jamming with the Stones in the Bahamas and then played on “Emotional Rescue,” “Tattoo You” and a Mick Jagger solo album. Did you first meet the Stones when Santana shared the bill with them at Altamont? What percussion instruments did you play on the Stones’ albums, with Charlie Watts playing traps?
MICHAEL:Mick Jagger used to come to Santana’s concerts in London and was a fan of the band, so that’s where I first met him. I went to his wedding to Bianca in the south of France and did some playing at the party after the wedding. When I moved to New York we became friends and used to hang out and listen to music together. We went to see Jack DeJohnette together and I took Mick to The Corso to hear Latin music and watch the dancers. I couldn’t believe he’d never been there, and he loved it, as you can imagine. The Stones were working with engineer Chris Kimsey in the studio, who I’d met and worked with on the ‘Automatic Man” record in London, so basically I would go down to the studio and hang out with them. Every once in a while there needed to be some percussion on a tune, and I was there and just did it. It was just small stuff like tambourine, cowbell or maybe some timbales. I played on the “Emotional Rescue” record and “Tatoo You” and I played drums on Mick’s first solo album, which was recorded at Compass Point in Nassau. Nobody plays drums on a Rolling Stones record except for Charlie Watts! I have a great deal of respect for Mick Jagger. The guy works his tail off, is extremely professional and a really smart guy. It was a pleasure to work with him.
MC:
Did you back George Harrison on his track on the “Porky’s Revenge” soundtrack? If so, did that satisfy any Ringo fantasies you might have had as a kid (that is, if you were into the Beatles)? J
MICHAEL: Yes, I did get to play with George Harrison on that track. It was a Bob Dylan tune called “I Don’t Want To Do It.” Dave Edmunds was producing that soundtrack, and he and George were good friends. George came down to the studio with Jim Keltner and I’m certain he was expecting Jim to play drums, but I was in the “house band” for the record and we were running down the tune with me playing. I must admit that years earlier I would have said to Jim, “Jim, here, why don’t you play it?”, but I was a bit older and wiser now, and I didn’t ask him purely out of my selfish desire to cut a tune with George Harrison! That’s the truth! But George didn’t say anything and seemed to be really happy with the track, and Jim, as always, was a complete gentleman, so it all worked out!
MC:
Michael, your bio states that you’ve recorded with both Jaco Pastorius and Pete Townshend. Not many musicians can say that…can you tell us about those sessions?
MICHAEL: When I was living in New York, I became friends with Pete, who I adore. He was a fan of Novo Combo, like I mentioned earlier. One night Pete called me up and asked me to come to Atlantic Studios, so I went down there and he had this somewhat elaborate live setup with either stereo or surround speakers set up for his guitar. Pete wanted to cut some demos of a bunch of tunes he was working on…we did that four hours. Pete’s a very commanding presence, and it was intense and great fun playing with him, but they were just demos. Later, I was in London and somebody comes up from behind in a restaurant and covers my eyes, and says “Guess who?”, and it was Pete. He said they were in the studio recording “Even Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes,” and that the producer was having the drummer play all the stuff that I played on the demos. I said, “Well, why not just have me?”
MC:
And Jaco?
MICHAEL: With Jaco, again I had seen him around New York and of course with Weather Report, and he was also doing these Monday night shows with Mike Stern downtown at the 55 Bar, and I would go there and watch them. One night I was at The Power Station, a studio in New York City, with Mick Jagger and Nile Rogers, who was mixing some of Mick’s stuff. I went downstairs to another floor for a minute and there was Jaco, in full warpaint on his face, I kid you not! It was about two in the morning, and he is dead set on setting up a recording session right now! He’s calling all these great New York horn players like Lew Soloff, and he had two drummers, myself and Ricky Sebastian and we just jammed for hours. I don’t think it’s ever come out though.
MC:
Of the many projects you’ve played on as a “sideman,” which was your favorite, and why?
MICHAEL: I wish I could say I had a favorite, but I really don’t. I mean I enjoyed something about each of them, really.
MC, PJ, VICENTE M., MIKE L & ROMAIN:
Michael, our Café patrons would love to see you and Carlos work together again. There are various types of collaboration that have been envisioned: MIKE L. is hoping that your work on “Aye Aye Aye” and the fact that you sat in with the band several times not long ago might indicate “plans for you to re-unite with Santana?” PJ and VICENTE M. point out that Tom Coster says he would be interested in joining a “Lotus” reunion tour (playing music from that era with the surviving members of that band); they wonder if – you – would be open to that, too? ROMAIN asks whether you and Carlos might consider playing together using new sounds similar to the music of Massive Attack and Björk, bringing “your beautiful and mellow acoustic drums” into an electronic context? Any thoughts you have regarding these questions and the general concept of future projects with Carlos will be much appreciated. ROMAIN, in particular, is honored to be in touch with you “virtually” and thanks you for your reply.

MICHAEL: Guys, I just don’t know what to say about all that. I don’t hold my breath for a reunion, let me put it that way! Carlos has become used to calling all the shots. I don’t really think that he feels the desire or the need to reunite the Santana lineups from the 60’s or 70’s. I don’t say that out of disrespect whatsoever. Any complaints or gripes that I had earlier are water under the bridge for me at this point. Carlos and I have a love and respect for each other that goes beyond even Santana. He was kind enough and sweet enough to invite me to come on the road with he and his band last year to go to South America and Europe. He said, basically, “I miss you, and I miss hanging out with you and listening to music with you. Won’t you please come and hang out?” And I did. And he was gracious and kind and we got to listen to a lot of music and watch music DVD’s while traveling. On the road he conducted himself with the utmost level of professionalism. He still has the same enthusiasm and passion for music of all kinds, and is truly a seeker of music, melody and rhythm, as well as spirit and compassion. I treasure him as a friend and really mean that anything negative from the past is truly in the past now. As far as your musical suggestions, Romain, I will say Carlos is not afraid of electronics or “chill” sounds like Massive Attack or Bjork, but it’s always the melody, the groove and the feeling with him. He is actually a fan of a lot of the “Buddha Bar” compilations. Wherever there’s a good melody, he’ll be there.
MC:
Do you still play the Premier drum set that Mike Rios hand-painted for you for the 20th Anniversary/”Viva Santana” tour? That was a one-of a kind kit, with those vivid colors that Mike uses in his artwork!
MICHAEL: No, I sold those drums to my friend Jim Bianco. They are very beautiful, and were actually painted before Mike Rios had met Carlos. I remember how Mike kept saying how he was chanting every day in order to meet Carlos!
FROM MC:
According to the interview that you and Gregg did some years back with Scott Sullivan of the Storm web page, Neal Schon suggested the idea for Abraxas Pool, inspired by the fun Neal was having working with Michael Carabello on the “Beyond The Thunder” session. You described the initial jams you had with Gregg, Neal, Carabello and Chepito as “incredible,” and went on to say “It was so natural it felt like we had never left each other… We got the material together and started recording and playing it live around the Bay Area and the reaction was phenomenal.” In the live footage I’ve seen of the band, the good vibes and energy between you guys was apparent, so why didn’t Abraxas Pool last? When Carlos declined the invitation to guest on the Abraxas Pool CD did he say why? In retrospect, what are your thoughts about the Abraxas Pool band and your attempt to revive the classic Santana Band sound?
MICHAEL: Abraxas Pool was great. What I learned to appreciate from that band was how truly unique the chemistry was between us and how much of that Santana sound came from Gregg Rolie and Chepito. The percussion section of myself, Michael Carabello and Chepito was something that was really special unto itself, and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to appreciate that now that I was a bit older. Abraxas Pool wrote some good songs, we were selling out The Fillmore for multiple nights, we were getting great reviews for the live shows, but no record company wanted to touch us without Carlos, except for Miramar in Seattle, who put the record out. I suppose we could have just kept going, but I didn’t want to play a bunch of Santana tunes all the time, for one thing, and I think Neal was part of a Journey reunion which pretty much completely snubbed Gregg Rolie, and that created bad blood between those two. I really enjoyed playing with the guys. Gregg and I became close again, and that was great. It was great to play with Neal again as well. That boy loves to play! Michael Carabello and I had always stayed in touch and still do. In regards to playing a bunch of old Santana songs without Carlos, I feel it’s OK for Gregg Rolie to do it in his band because he SANG those songs, and that validates anything that he wants to do with them. And no, Carlos did not give a reason why he didn’t want to do it, and I think we were a little offended by that. It was a simple, honest gesture of his old band mates reaching out. Giving him the benefit of the doubt though, I would assume that he simply did not want to open that door for fear of what might come through! Or he thought, why bother, I’m fine without THAT headache! No hard feelings here, though.
MC:
You and the other “Woodstock-era” Santana members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. What was the significance of that honor for you?
MICHAEL: It’s always rewarding to be acknowledged by something like a “Hall of Fame” for your hard work and creativity, though I thought it was a little strange that I’d have to pay $2500 each for my wife and son to be there! Hello! I remember thinking when we were there, that there’s so much “road kill” in rock and roll. We were inducted along with Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles, among others. I know that those two bands in particular have been through some rough times with different members coming and going or being asked to leave, or ego plays where only the strongest survived, and on a night like that some of them are being acknowledged publicly and professionally for the first time, or maybe for the first time in a long time. I could tell by the amount of tears from the wives of some of those being inducted that they were so grateful that their husbands were finally getting some sense of dignity and recognition, at least for a night…and then you’ve got that little statuette that no one can take away! This could make the lives of those wives a bit easier from now on! You can forever say you’ve been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, even if none of your old band mates speak to you anymore, care about you anymore, or send you money that you think you deserve anymore! I’m not talking about myself here…just observations of the evening! For example, Peter Green started Fleetwood Mac, but although he was inducted into the Hall that night he was not on the podium with Fleetwood Mac when they received their awards and he didn’t perform with them either…I doubt that they even asked him. Peter Green wrote “Black Magic Woman” and recorded it with Fleetwood Mac years ago, which is where we got the tune. I should really say where Gregg Rolie got the tune, because if it weren’t for Gregg, Santana would have never recorded that song. Thank God that Carlos was gracious enough to invite Peter Green onstage to sit in with us on “Black Magic Woman” or he probably would not have been acknowledged in any way that night. The suits in the audience sitting at their $10,000 tables were probably saying, “Who’s that weird old guy up there playing with Santana?” Don’t laugh, I’m not kidding.
MC:
At the Hall of Fame induction you said: “I’ve had a fruitful and long creative career but nothing has compared to my experience of playing in Santana.” Did you mean this in the sense of the amount of public recognition you received in Santana or the amount of personal satisfaction?

MICHAEL: I was not referring to the amount of public recognition I had received from Santana, but rather all that we had gone through and shared together as a group of people at such a young age, and for the incredible music we made together.
MC: You have said that “the music we played with Santana crossed so many boundaries and borders and gave this entrée into other (musical and cultural) communities.” It seems that this is one significant way in which the Santana experience shaped you as a person and a musician. What else did you take with you from your days in Santana?
MICHAEL: The Santana music is so universal that people love it anywhere and everywhere in the world. I can meet drummers and other musicians from anywhere and get respect for the music we made, and hopefully for music that I’m making now. When I went to South America with Carlos recently, the reception he got everywhere was amazing. He’s iconic for them, and he brings a beautiful message as well.
PIERROT:
Michael, if you would have the chance to turn back time, would there be anything you did during your time with Santana that you would do differently?
MICHAEL: Regrets, I’ve had my share! Is that how the song goes? One of the things I most regret is not taking advantage of learning more from Chepito and Armando. There are probably other things, but otherwise, I think I did the best I could, given the circumstances, like age and inexperience.
PIERROT:
What do you think concering old concert film material of Santana like the “Lotus“ tour in Japan 1973 or the South American one during 1973, should they be officially released on DVD? We diehard fans all over the world would love to see Santana releasing some of the old shows on DVD. Also, knowing Bill Graham got to film some of the shows of the “ LDS“ Tour 1973, but sadly they have never ever been released. Maybe this will change with the new owner of the Wolfgang’s Vault company?
MICHAEL: Well, I’d be very happy if they released the “Lotus” concerts on DVD! There are videos on You Tube, so there must be video available for release.
MIKE L:
Have you seen any of the recent Santana DVD releases: “Santana/Shorter Band,” “Blues at Montreux,” “Hymns,” or live with Trey’s band? What are your thoughts on these performances?
MICHAEL: To be honest, I haven’t seen much of these except for the some of the Wayne Shorter material from Montreux that Carlos played for me, and that was great.
VICENTE M.:
Of the drummers who have played in Santana since you left, do you have a favorite?
MICHAEL: Oh, I’m not going to touch that one! They’ve all been great! Currently Dennis Chambers is phenomenal, and I think he pretty much embodies everything that Carlos could want and more! He’s an incredible drummer and a fantastic guy.
MC:
Your post-Santana body of work is filled with many gems…”The Leaving Time” (with Steve Roach) is beautifully melodic, with ethnic rhythms and Jonas Hellborg’s funky bass lines percolating beneath some of the tracks, and “The Big Picture” is an intriguing and appealing set with prominent grooves and “Lotus”-flavored harmonies. It’s remarkable that most of the music on “The Big Picture” was played with drumsticks on Octapads by you and fellow drummer David Beal, as the overall vibe is organic and warm. Do you feel that the fact that many of your solo and collaborative projects have been on small labels and pigeonholed as electronic, new age or experimental music has led to your “Santana public” losing track of you and missing out on some of your work, such as these CDs, that they may have enjoyed?
MICHAEL: It’s probably true that some of my “Santana public” have lost track of me, but the internet and Google are amazing tools! I admit, too, that I haven’t always played “Santana” type music, though when the live Spellbinder CD comes out you will hear me playing drums like I did in that “Lotus” period. I like a lot of different types of music, and I like to explore. I’m really no different than I ever was. When I was in Santana I was doing the same thing, it’s just that those influences then went into the context of the Santana music, if you know what I mean. They were probably a little more palatable within that more commercial context, that more song-based context.
MC:
You first tried electronic drums in 1971, first performed live on them with Go in ’76, and utilized them extensively over the first few albums of your solo career. Then, as the 80’s became the ‘90’s you seemed to turn back toward acoustic drums. How has your use of electronics evolved since then…are they an important creative tool for you currently?

MICHAEL:I first got into the electronic drums in 1972 when I met a man named Steve Lammé and his son Etienne from Portland, Oregon. They had invented the first electronic drums, which were called “Impakt Electronic Percussion” I still have them! I used them a bit in Automatic Man and the Go records in 1976, and worked quite extensively with Etienne on playing them and learning about them. Later, I got into the Syndrums and Simmons Drums and every other electronic drum that came out. Then the Roland Octapads came out with the MIDI interface, and now you could play ANY sound you wanted with sticks through MIDI, which is what David Beal and I did on “The Big Picture” David was brilliant with the electronics. Soon after that, the KAT pads came out and they were so extensive, and still are, that that was about all I needed. Later the Roland V-Drums came out, and these are incredible as well, but in different ways than the KAT pads. The fastest-triggering electronic drums I’ve ever experienced, though, were made by a man in Seattle named Al Adinolfi who has a company called “Boom Theory.” Al’s drums are real drum heads with real shells with foam inside. They look like normal drums, but are completely electronic. For me, though, the KAT pads are the most comprehensive for my interests, which is mainly for playing melodic things on the pads, and these give me the most flexibility. Mario DeCiutiis has kept KAT alive through his company Alternate Mode. I’m really concentrating on acoustic drums right now, but I do bring the electronic drums out every once in a while.
MC:
Your two trio recordings from several years back, the acoustic fusion session “Octave Of The Holy Innocents” (with Jonas Hellborg and Buckethead) and the avant-garde organ set “Fascination” (with Wayne Horvitz and Bill Frisell) are both daring and unconventional, yet rooted in jazz. Both sets found you back on standard traps and taking the opportunity to flat-out –play– ! Listening to these recordings, one can make out the full range of your drum artistry a lot more easily than with Santana. With both your chops and sensitivity on full display, these releases are a real treat for fans of your playing. Did you have a great time recording these albums, and can we look forward to future sessions along these lines?
MICHAEL: Thank you, I’m glad you liked them! You left out “Two Doors” with Jonas Hellborg and Shawn Lane, though, which is one of my favorites. I certainly hope I can do more records like these, playing with such great musicians. Drum-wise you will be getting this and more from Spellbinder.
DIRK (with updates from MC):
Thank you for all the music you’ve made over the years. Like a zillion others around de planet, I ‘know’ you from your days with Santana, but I’ve also closely followed your solo career, for example I enjoyed your “Stiletto” album very much. Your “Drums of Compassion” CD has been in the works for years. Its release had been postponed and I was worried that it might have been shelved, but your MySpace page now lists a 2008 release date. Can we expect it to be available soon?
MICHAEL: “Drums of Compassion” seems to be the record that never ends. I started it with Jeff Greinke, a wonderful synthesist who was living in Seattle. He and I had recorded a record with just the two of us, and it was beautiful, but I felt like I wanted more earth on it. I’m playing 16 tom toms in a semi-circle, standing, which is just what Stomu had done years earlier. I’ve got Airto on it , along with Zakir Hussain and Jack DeJohnette. Olatunji did an invocation, which was actually recorded for the intro to “Jingo” on the “Abraxas Pool” CD but wasn’t used there, so I decided to use it on this record. It’s a very spacey record, but I also have a couple of pieces on there with Karl Perazzo and Raul Rekow. I also met with Evelyn Glennie in San Francisco, we had dinner and I spoke to her about playing on the CD. Although we still haven’t been able to put our schedules together, I haven’t given up on her! I’ve been trying to finish “Drums of Compassion” for too long, but I really do hope to finish it and have it out this year. It certainly has not been shelved, and I will begin posting pieces of it in the player on My Space, not for download yet, because it’s not finished, but to have a taste!
MIKE L: 
What CD’s of yours would you recommend for those of us who know you primarily through Santana?
MICHAEL: Well, I think “Stiletto, “Two Doors”, and “Fascination” may be a good place to start.
MC: 
Do you have any plans to sell recordings from your solo career through your website?
MICHAEL: Yes, I would really like to do that, and am looking into that now.
MC:
From production work with Santana and on your own recordings, you’ve gone on to produce in a diverse array of styles, from rockabilly, folk rock and Middle Eastern to Bill Frisell’s jazz trio album with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones. What is your production philosophy and what is it that draws you to producing other people’s CDs?

MICHAEL: Only that I like the music and it seems that we can do something good together. Check out AriSawkaDoria, a trio I’ve been producing recently.
PJ:
Does your recreational listening nowadays ever include early Santana music? If so, is there one album you gravitate to the most?
MICHAEL: I have to admit that I don’t really go back and listen to the albums recreationally, however I have been going through the old Santana records to see what material could be good for my new instrumental group Spellbinder. There is a certain way that I want to play drums now, and it has a lot to do with some of those Santana recordings.
MC:
Spellbinder which has been gigging regularly in Seattle. Your organist Joe Doria (who you’ve described as “the Hammond player everybody wants”) has done some straight-ahead jazz work, and the group’s organ, guitar, trumpet, bass and drums instrumentation sounds as if it could be a jazz quintet. According to Michael Allison of “Earshot Jazz,” the band also has African, Latin and Indian influences that let you “close your eyes and travel the world of rhythm.” Allison goes on to say that these gigs have been in preparation for a tour, and that many of Spellbinder’s live sets have been recorded. Can you tell us more about the group’s sound and its plans, including the planned tour and a possible CD release?
MICHAEL:Yes, I’m really excited about Spellbinder. We have Joe Doria on Hammond B-3, Danny Godinez on guitar, Farko Dosumov on bass, and John Fricke on trumpet. They are all great players and we have been playing every Monday at a great little club/lounge in Seattle called “ToST” (sounds like toast). It’s an instrumental group that is based on the way I want to play drums right now. It’ s jazzy, with Latin overtones, and I’ve been in the studio mixing a live CD we recorded at ToST. I have already started posting some tunes even though they’re not mixed, on the band’s My Space page which is myspace.com/michaelshrievesspellbinder , and soon will have video up on that page and You Tube.
MC:
We knew that Gabor Szabo had influenced Carlos and other Latin Rock guitarists, but what did Gabor’s music mean to you, personally? As a drummer, did you first discover Gabor’s playing and writing when you checked out drummer Chico Hamilton’s band (of which Szabo was a member)?
MICHAEL: We all loved those great Gabor Szabo records. Carlos was very influenced by Gabor, and I was very influenced by Chico Hamilton on those recordings as well. A lot of the cymbal work I did on the Santana records was derived from Chico’s playing on Gabor’s records like “Spellbinder.” Well, obviously, I named my new group Spellbinder and we play that song, too!
FROM MC:
You’ve mentioned that “Every Step Of The Way,” “Xibaba” and “Jungle Strut” are part of Spellbinder’s repertoire. What is it about those particular Santana songs that made you select them for Spellbinder? What other material are you currently performing?
MICHAEL: If there is Santana material that I had something to do with that neither Carlos and Gregg are doing in their bands, and I liked the way I played on it, then I will consider doing it in Spellbinder. I want to get back to playing drums the way I played on those songs. More like the jazz side of Santana, if you will. We’ve changed the arrangement of “Every Step of the Way”…right now we are doing it pretty much without the whole first section. I’ll post in on My Space real soon. We also do some songs from “Stiletto” and other pieces that I like.
MC:
Mike, even though you were a street-smart kid when you joined Santana, was becoming part of a heavily Latino extended musical family a culture shock for you? This was the era of the Brown Power movement and La Raza consciousness, and Santana (as well as Azteca and Luis Gasca, with whom you were also associated) were artists with whom the Chicano/Latino community identified heavily. Did you always feel accepted and able to adapt in that milieu, or were there times when you were the target of prejudice and negative vibes or just felt like an outsider? On the positive side, did your membership in a close-knit multicultural band and the overall Latin Rock scene lead to new insights, and did you even pick up a few words of Spanish?
MICHAEL: I loved it all. The experience was a rich and colorful one for me, and it certainly gave me an entree and cachet with the Latino community! But No, I didn’t feel at all like an outsider.
MC:
Michael, you have described the 60’s as “a really beautiful period when musical genres were getting mixed up and the artists were changed by the music they played…” You told Michael Allison of “Earshot Jazz” that in reflecting on your own drumming you’ve concluded that you’re not purely a jazz, rock or Latin drummer, but a “mutt!” Afro-Latin and other world ethnic rhythms frequently surface in your solo projects and bands, as well as the music you choose to produce, and you’ve acknowledged that you definitely have the Latin rhythm in your playing. Are the world music and Latin threads of who you are a legacy of your Santana experience? Could it be that being part of that Santana percussion section left a permanent mark on you?
MICHAEL: Oh my God, absolutely! I am completely shaped by my experience in Santana. There is simply no way around it. In many projects that I have done in the past I resisted the influence of my Santana days, and that was me trying to show other sides of myself, but now I just want to accept it all for what it really is. The Santana experience had so much influence on the way I play and who I am as a person. It is inseparable.
MC:
You directed an international drumming and dance spectacular at the 2001 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. That must have been quite an undertaking! Can you tell us what that program was like?
MICHAEL: I was hired by Major League Baseball to put together a pre-game extravaganza for the 2001 All Star Game, like you said. Their idea was to do a presentation that somehow showed the diversity of Major League Baseball through drumming. So I got a list of every country that the players came from. I selected Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Japan, and the United States. There were many players from Cuba and Puerto Rico, Ichiro, the star of the Seattle Mariners, is from Japan, and there was one Brazilian player, so I had a group of Japanese Taiko players, a group of about forty Brazilian Batucada/Samba players and dancers and a marching/drum corps group. Of course, I had Latin percussionists as well….I invited Michael Carabello up to participate in it, because I knew that he is a big baseball fan and one of his heroes, Orlando Cepeda, was being recognized that day. It was a lot of fun and came off really well. The only problem was that it wasn’t broadcast as a part of the game, and while it was going on on the field, they only showed the sportscaster talking about the upcoming game while the music went on in the background. It was such a waste that they didn’t show it on the air!
MC:
Was visiting Ghana with Santana to play the “Soul To Soul” concert an eye-opener in terms of African music? Neal Schon has said that the African musicians played an amazing show for you the night before “Soul To Soul.” African groups on the bill reportedly ranged from a traditional Ashanti drum ensemble to the super-funky Ghanaian Afro-beat band The Aliens (later to become Hugh Masekela’s backup band Hedzoleh Soundz), who reportedly had some Santana songs in their repertoire. Any recollections of performances, jam sessions, or the reception Santana received from the African audience? You have said you weren’t sure that Santana was that well known in Ghana.
MICHAEL: Oh, “Soul To Soul” was one of the best experiences ever! We all flew over on the same plane: Ike and Tina Turner and their band, The Voices of East Harlem (with Doug Rauch), Wlison Pickett, The Staple Singers, Roberta Flack, Les McCann, Eddie Harris. You get the picture. There weren’t a bunch of jam sessions, but yes, we were treated to an incredible presentation the night before of African Music and Dance. I also remember sitting between Mavis Staples and Roberta Flack for hours discussing female singers while listening to a mix tape of female vocalists that I had brought along…both these ladies were on the cassette, of course. On Mavis’ commentary on the DVD she said something like “Yeah, Roberta Flack and I sat on either side of Mike Shrieve talking and talking, and he was like an Oreo Cookie in between the two of us!” Is that great or what? I remember hanging out with IkeTurner and him taking me to Wilson Pickett’s room and Pickett not letting me in the room. Pickett’s shouting “Ike!, You know how I feel about that!” Meaning I was white. And Ike going “Pickett! Come on now!” I just said, “Ike don’t worry about it, I’ll catch up with you later!” Funny stuff. Pickett was still old school with that prejudice stuff. Most people weren’t like that then. I don’t think the Africans knew Santana. Pickett was the star of the show. They were into James Brown and Wilson Pickett and American Soul Music. They liked it when we played, though, but I think they were a little bit like, “What the hell is THIS?” Chepito wasn’t able to make it because he was sick, so Willie Bobo took his place and that was a lot of fun. There is a DVD available of that show which I highly recommend..I did one of the commentaries on it. Get the DVD!
MC:
In “VOLR” you mentioned being friendly with Lolo, the leader of the Haitian band Boukman Eksperyans, whose powerful electric Afro-Haitian music could be quite appealing to Santana fans. Have you and/or Carlos ever thought about collaborating with Boukman Eksperyans?
MICHAEL: I met Lolo and Boukman at Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival. They became great friends with my family and would come to the house when they were in town…they are beautiful people bringing awareness of the Haitian people through their music. Did you know that certain Voodoo rhythms were outlawed in Haiti and you would be put in jail if you played them? How does that speak to the power of rhythm that the government fears a rhythm so much that they outlaw it!? Well, Boukman Eksperyans started bringing back those rhythms in their music and insisted on playing them, and it wasn’t easy for them. I gave Carlos a couple of their CD’s, hoping he would respond to the music. They so much wanted him to participate in some way, but everyone wants Carlos to participate in their music. I haven’t seen Lolo in a while. It would be great to get back in touch.
MC: 
Your 1989 “Modern Drummer” interview found you listening a lot to the Pat Metheny Group’s great album “Still Life (Talking).” You dug what Metheny, Paul Wertico and company were doing from the standpoint of having played in Santana. Here was another band playing a hybrid of North American and Latin American styles, in this case jazz and Brazilian music. Are there any bands or artists today that particularly impress you with their own blends of Latin styles with jazz, rock, funk or R&B?
MICHAEL: I love Pat Metheny and I loved what Paul Wertico played with Pat. Pat always plays with great drummers. My current favorite is Carlinhos Brown from Brazil. I just can’t get enough of him!

FROM MC:
Three years ago, music critic Gene Stout of the Seattle Post Intelligencer wrote glowingly about “the intense and muscular world rock sound” of your nine-piece band Tangletown, going on to call the band’s music “danceable, joyful, with a contemporary edge.” You’ve described Tangletown as a “big mean machine.” The group, featuring both you and Kevin Sawka on drums, sounds like a high-energy outfit with driving Afro-Latin rhythms (featuring veteran conguero Johnny Conga), virtuoso keyboard, dual rock guitars, jazz flugelhorn and strong lead vocals. James Whiton of your Drums of Compassion project was on upright bass and Danny Godinez, currently with Spellbinder, was one of the guitarists. Tangletown sounds as if it would appeal to Santana fans, and is still mentioned prominently on your website. Now that you’re busy with Spellbinder, is Tangletown on the back burner? Has the group made any recordings, other than the funky track “One” that you’ve posted on your MySpace page, and are any planned?
MICHAEL: Tangletown, my big groove band, is on the back burner, but not gone. We have recorded four or five tunes. One is a Baaba Maal song called “African Woman,” another is a new version of Chepito’s song “Baila Mi Cha Cha” from Abraxas Pool, which I wrote some verse lyrics to, and also did a couple of originals. I’ll be posting some more Tangletown music on My Space page.
MC:
Beyond Elvin Jones, can you name those few select drummers who impacted your musical development the most, and tell us how each influenced you? Also, please tell us which currently active drummers you most enjoy, and why.
MICHAEL: Aside from Elvin, Jack DeJohnette and Tony Williams were, and still are, big influences. They all have something that goes beyond the drums, an energy in the way they propel the music forward. It’s an inner desire and drive. They know the role of the drummer as a timekeeper, but go beyond that. Of course there’s also Roy Haynes, Max Roach, Papa Jo Jones, Art Blakey, Buddy Rich and countless others, too. And then, of course, David Garibaldi, Bernard Purdie, Clyde Stubblefield, Mike Clark, Gregg Errico and Lenny White, and Matt Chamberlain and Jim Keltner. I like Adam Nussbaum and I love Brian Blade. Brian Blade reminds me of Elvin and Jack and Stomu Yamashta. He feels the music so deeply and is not afraid to be extremely expressive on the drums.
MC:
To your credit, you’ve never closed your ears to new music. You’ve befriended and worked with a number of younger musicians in the Seattle area, from creative punk-jazzer Skerik to beat-boxing American Idol runner-up Blake Lewis and neo-soul standout Reggie Watts. As someone with diverse musical interests, who are a few of your favorite up and coming artists that you’d recommend to us, in any style of music?
MICHAEL: There are a couple of young drummers from the Seattle area that I really like. One is Kevin Sawka, who is a monster at Drum and Bass and Jungle style drumming. He’s also the other drummer in Tangletown and plays in AriSawkaDoria. The other is Sean Hutchinson who is currently playing in a San Francisco band called New Monsoon. Skerik is a sax player who is very vigorous and adventurous. He’s all over that jam band scene but plays all kinds of music. Critter’s Buggin’ is a group with both Skerik and Matt Chamberlain. You should get that new CD called “Floratone” with Bill Frisell and Matt Chamberlain. I like Glenn Kotchke’s solo percussion CD. He’s the drummer from Wilco. I like The Mars Volta (they’ve had some monster drummers)! I like Bebel Gilberto and Ceu. I even like Panic at the Disco and Arcade Fire! I’m all over the place!
VICENTE M. & PIERROT:
You’ve had the chance to tour with both the “Lotus“-era band and a current configuration of Santana. How do you feel about the talent level in the current band, and what do you think honestly of the musical direction Santana has taken in recent years?
MICHAEL: I think that every player in Carlos’s band is a great player. They truly are. Most of them you could put anywhere, and they could deal, musically. As far as my “honest” opinion of the current music, I get the feeling you would like me to say, “Oh it’s nothing like the original band,” or, “It’s too commercial” or whatever. But I won’t! That was then, and this, for Carlos, is now. Don’t forget, he’s got a record that he’s working on with Bill Laswell and Narada Michael Walden coming out soon, which should be interesting. You have to put yourself in Carlos’ shoes. He really has wanted to reach as many people as possible and doesn’t feel limited by the limitations OTHER people want to put on him. To Carlos, he hasn’t sold out. He’s trying to fulfill a spiritual obligation to be as Universal a musician as possible. Beyond Santana music, beyond jazz music, or world music, or whatever. It’s him and his guitar, and he can go anywhere. It’s the same with Bill Frisell. He’s known as a jazz guitar player, but is now wanting to reach a different and wider audience and not be pigeonholed as a jazz player, so now he plays with country musicians, Paul Simon, Rickie Lee Jones, U2, Elvis Costello, you name it. Does that make him less of a player? No, it makes him more of a player! It’s more Universal. And people love an artist like this. Do you put down Louis Armstrong for singing “What a Wonderful World?” No! In fact, for most people it’s the only thing they know by Louis Armstrong. Does that take away from the fact that he has made one of the most singular contributions to American Jazz Music with everything that he played before “What a Wonderful World?” Absolutely not! And it’s the same with Carlos. So, enough of that! Carlos isn’t done yet, believe me.
MC:
Early last year, you, Carlos, Gregg, and Michael Carabello played together at a “VOLR” event at Bimbo’s in San Francisco, and were joined briefly by Chepito. It was a thrill for the crowd in attendance, but for you and the other former Santana band members do you think the moment was more of a joyful or a poignant one?
MICHAEL: Oh, I don’t know. I’d say more poignant. I didn’t care for the way I played, I can tell you that! It was wonderful to play with the guys, though, and I hope we can do it again sometime.
MC: How has fatherhood impacted your outlook on life and your perspective on the world? What are your hopes for your sons?

MICHAEL: Fatherhood has been very rewarding, in my experience. It forces you to slow down and get out of your own personal mindset. If you embrace it and don’t fight it, it can be extremely rewarding, and most satisfying. If you fight it, it’s a big hassle and a long haul. My hopes for my kids are that they are able to be healthy, that they have long and satisfying lives, that they are able to make contributions to the world around them that are of service and that in some way they are a positive force to help the world to be a better place.
MC:
Your eldest son Sam is reportedly working on his debut CD, with you producing. How’s the project coming, and how would you describe his music?
MICHAEL: Sam was raised as a drummer, but has really taken to writing songs on piano and guitar and seems to be a very talented singer and songwriter. He’s 18 years old and is in his freshman year at Berklee School of Music in Boston on dual scholarships for Drums and Songwriting. To think that you can get a scholarship for Songwriting really blows me away! You can see him and hear some of his music at www.myspace.com/samshrieve . Of course, I’ve discussed music and the music business with him! I’ve showed him my BMI royalty statements and discussed what everything means on them. He can see that you make more money if you write the songs! He’s not driven by that, though, but rather an innate desire to write and express himself. He wrote as much when he knew three chords as he does now with a lot more knowledge, and those three-chord songs weren’t bad, either! Sam and I are blessed to have a relationship that shares so much music. He is extremely diverse in his listening habits and is very open to all kinds of music. Last summer, before Sam was going away to college, I figured it would be a great father/son bonding experience, if you will, to go into the studio and record his songs. I don’t camp much, so this seemed like a good alternative! We had a great time and approached it very professionally. There was some resistance to me producing, because of course he wants people to know that it’s him and not me. Sam doesn’t want to hold onto my coattails, but once I told him that I wouldn’t use my name and that he could have final say, he was fine with it! Of course I’m proud of him. I also realize that the whole music business is going through a complete change right now, and the concern is how best to approach it for a new and upcoming artist. I can’t tell you how much pleasure I get from listening to and speaking about music with Sam. That is a gift I will always be grateful for.
MC: 
Michael, what musical goals have you yet to achieve, and what should we expect to hear from you in the future?
MICHAEL: I’ve got three, maybe four recording projects I’d like to get done and out there in the world, including two or three in the next year. I’d like to finish up the Elvin Jones book in some form or another, and I’d like to start being on the road again, beginning by touring with Spellbinder.
MC:
In closing, Michael thanks again on behalf of your fans around the world for sharing your time and insights with us. Best of luck to you!
[Ed: Anyone wishing to keep tabs on Michael’s activities can do so by visiting him on My Space at myspace.com/michaelshrieve and myspace.com/michaelshrievesspellbinder ]

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VOICES OF LATIN ROCK  –  MICHAEL SHRIEVE

A brief but enormous thank you to Jose Sierra and Gilberto Vera for making this interview possible for this re-posting. This is the longest interview Michael has done in his career and it will posted in two parts due to the length and details of the piece. This is a truly excellent piece of work with good research and very interesting questions being posed. I think we are all indebted to Michael for such a fascinating and searching career to date and long may it continue.

– PART 1

[Show as slideshow]

12►

“A Conversation with Michael Shrieve – Part 1″

Compiled, edited and hosted by Jose Sierra on behalf of Moonflower Café with assistance from PJ. (additional questions from Moonflower readers, as noted)

Thanks to the following:
“Soul Sacrifice – The Santana Story” by Simon Leng;
“Voices of Latin Rock” by Jim McCarthy (hereafter referred to as “VOLR”); 
“Modern Drummer” (Rick Mattingly, June ’89);
“Earshot Jazz” (Michael Allison, November ’07);
Santanamigos
MichaelShrieve.com
Sam Totah, Pierrot Jain, Scott Enders and Gert.
Produced by Gilberto Vera

Q&A WITH MICHAEL SHRIEVE

MC:

One magical day years ago, a young boy happened upon a school band rehearsal and fell under the spell of the drums. He grew into a prodigious talent and became a seminal member of the Santana band, playing on (and often writing and co-producing for) that group’s first six studio albums. Having followed his muse into a remarkable array of solo and group projects, he now touches the world as an established artist in his own right, a mentor to younger musicians and an advocate for musical education in the public schools. It is with joy and gratitude that Moonflower Café welcomes Michael Shrieve, who was kind enough to take several hours out from work on his new band’s debut CD to answer our questions.

MICHAEL: OK, I’m suffering from Carpal Tunnel now! This is clearly the most I’ve ever talked or written about this stuff.

MC:
Michael, during Santana’s original heyday the band seldom spoke publicly, and we fans were left wondering why you were all so mysterious and enigmatic. In recent years, you’ve posted a lot of your thoughts on your website, spoken candidly for the “VOLR” book, been featured in EMP’s “Oral History Live!” lecture/interview series, and have made yourself accessible to the Seattle media (and, thankfully, to Moonflower Café). Why was the original Santana band so media-shy and what has led to your change in outlook and increased openness over the years? Why have you decided to tell your story?

MICHAEL: Well, to tell you the truth, I’d never really considered that Santana was “mysterious” or “enigmatic.” One thing that may have contributed to that impression is that as a band we were very tight as friends and as musicians. I don’t think we thought of ourselves as “media shy” either. Perhaps management wasn’t advising us of interview requests, I don’t know. As for telling the story now, I’ve always considered myself to be quite open about my experiences, but as time moves on there seems to be more of a historical context that people are interested in. The era in which we started out has itself taken on more musical and cultural-sociological weight in people’s minds. Now that I’m 58 years old, I can also look back on that period with more insight, more maturity, and hopefully more wisdom.

MC:
There seem to be lots of musical Shrieves! Your brother Kevin plays guitar in a band called Dream Art Science and previously worked with you, Klaus Schulze, Alphonso Johnson and Luis Gasca. A son and a nephew of yours also play music. Were your parents musical, and was there music being played in your home as a child that may have helped spark your interest?

MICHAEL: Yes! My father was a big, big jazz fan, and my mother was a big fan of musicals, so that stuff was always playing. I remember being about 13 or 14 years old and up very late listening to music in the living room, quietly, right next to the speakers. It seemed to have woken my father, though, and he came in and asked “Mike, what are doing up so late?” I said “I’m up late because I’m practicing being a musician!” I figured musicians stayed up late and I better start practicing that part of it! I wasn’t even playing an instrument yet! My brother Kevin is a brilliant guitar player who simply made the choice to not be on the road. We’ve shared music together since we were very young, had bands together, and we still turn each other on to music. My brother Rich plays some piano and used to play clarinet. Rich has always had a deep passion for music, he feels it so deeply, and aside from Carlos Santana my deepest sharing of music has been with Rich. Rich has two sons who are musicians, Max and Peter. Max plays all the wind instruments, and although he plays mainly classical, he has an incredible and voracious appetite for all kinds of music; He was all-city in the high school orchestras in San Francisco, and is now majoring in Music at UC Santa Cruz. His brother Peter is still in high school, and from what I hear is also a force to be reckoned with. Two of my sister Eileen’s kids, Dan and Pat Kennedy, had a band together and have made records. I played on Dan’s album “DK”, and my son Sam played drums on Pat’s record “The Distraction Fit”.

SCOTT E:
Hi, Mike! I’d like to personally thank you for the musical gifts you’ve shared with millions of fans, and for taking part in this Cafe rap session. Like you, I also had ADHD as a youth and fell in love with drumming (which seems to have been an excellent remedy for my ADHD). Your playing was a big inspiration for me. How old were you when you first learned the basic beat, you know, right hand cymbal left 4:1 and then adding in the right foot pedal in sync? Did you keep your original set of drums?

MICHAEL: Scott, I would say that I started learning that type of basic beat at the last part of 8th grade and the summer before high school. When I was learning I didn’t have my own drums, so I used to go to other people’s houses to practice on their drums. Eventually I got a snare drum through mail order with earnings from my paper route! I was on the road before I even owned my own drums. The pink champagne Ludwig kit that I played at Woodstock, I bought in Wyoming while on the road with a group just after high school! Yes, Scott (and Vicente & PJ), I still have my first drum set, which are also the drums I played at Woodstock.

SCOTT E & MC:
In “Modern Drummer” you mentioned having studied with several different teachers over the years. Did you take professional lessons in your childhood and teens to learn the rudiments, or were you self-taught until deciding in adulthood that there were aspects of your playing that you wanted to improve upon?

MICHAEL: I started playing in eighth grade, and started drum lessons while I was in high school. My first teacher was Anthony Cirone, who is now a world famous percussionist and has written some classic drum books. After Anthony, I took lessons from Mike Delucca at Hart Music in San Carlos, CA. Mickey Hart’s father owned the store. Mickey was a rudimental champion then, and was always playing on a pad while he worked behind the counter. I saw Mickey when I went to the store and he showed me things, as well. I’ve also studied with some other wonderful teachers, including Charles Bernstein, Pete Magadini, and Michael Carvin. I learned special things from each one of them.

SCOTT E:
Rolls appear to be a big part of your drumming style. Did doing multiple-bounce rolls so well with both hands come naturally to you?

MICHAEL: No! Nothing seems to come easy for me! I have to work really hard at it!

DEREK:
It’s an honor and privilege to communicate with you. Out of all your great talents, what impresses me the most is your cymbal work, especially on “Lotus” and “Automatic Man.” Do you have any special practice techniques that you use for ride and hi-hat patterns? What is your take on how cymbal playing should complement a song rather than distract from it?

MICHAEL: Thank you Derek. I don’t really have any special practice techniques for that, although I do play around with different sticking patterns and then try to apply them to different parts of the set, or I’ll try them as grooves between the cymbal, snare and bass drum. The same goes for the hi-hat, where different musical parts and dynamics may call for a more open, cymbal sound and at other times a tighter hi-hat sound.

SCOTT E:
Can you read music? Do you play any instruments other than drums… guitar, keys, etc.?

MICHAEL: I can read drum music, and I play around with the guitar and piano but do not consider myself a player on those instruments.

MC:
Michael, you went to school in Redwood City (in San Francisco’s southern suburbs) with Lydia Pense, who would become lead singer for the band Cold Blood. Did you know Lydia and have any musical interactions with her?

MICHAEL: Lydia!!! Yes, Lydia and I went to the same grade school in Redwood City. One day there was a talent show at the school. I wasn’t in it because either I wasn’t playing yet or I had just started, but Lydia sang a song that just blew everyone away. I went up to her in the hallway afterwards and said something like “That wasn’t you singing! You were lip syncing!” She said” No, that was me.” And I said, “Prove it!” Eighth grade, right? So she proceeds to sing right there in the hallway, and wow, it was just incredible! So I walked her home that day, and it turns out she lived just around the corner from my house. Lydia was always incredible.

MC:
As a teen, you crawled through air vents like a “Mission Impossible” agent in order to sneak into concerts! One time you dropped from the ceiling into a men’s room where bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones were dressing for a John Coltrane gig. This embarrassing, comical incident at age sixteen would evolve into a lifelong friendship with Elvin, one of your greatest musical idols. Years later, Elvin and his wife would stay at your place when they came to town, and the two of you would jam together on dual drum sets. You accepted Elvin’s invitation to write his memoirs. Can we expect to see the book, “Elvin Jones and the Rhythm of Humanity,” on the shelves soon, perhaps accompanied by video footage or concert recordings that you have archived?

MICHAEL: I must admit that I’ve really dropped the ball on the book, and have got to get back to it. I’ve got really great, incredible stuff from Elvin. I spent two weeks with him on holiday in Greece and we talked constantly then. I also went with him to Pontiac, Michigan where he grew up and met childhood friends and acquaintances. We spent a lot of time together, and he, along with his wife Keiko, were dear friends. I’ve got to get back in touch with Keiko and finish it up.

MIKE L & MC:
You’ve described Elvin’s drumming as godlike, and jazz listeners and musicians have the highest respect for his talent and accomplishments. Did you agree with Carlos’ comments regarding racism in the U.S. media after Mr. Jones’ passing was barely mentioned in the press?

MICHAEL: Yes, Carlos was spot on about that. There were very nice tributes in all the drum and music magazines and the “New York Times” did a nice obituary, but Carlos felt that Elvin deserved the front page of the “New York Times” and the lead story on the Evening News! I gave the eulogy at Elvin’s funeral in New York. I hadn’t planned on it, but circumstances prevailed! I was sitting in the front row with Elvin’s widow, Keiko, just she and I. It was a whole ordeal just getting her to go there. She called me and said she wasn’t going to go, and had locked herself in her apartment. I asked my ex-wife Cindy, who had come out for the funeral as well, to go up there and try to talk some sense into Keiko. The Joneses were always at our house when they were in town. In fact, Elvin turned my son Sam on to lemon merengue pie! We were good friends and I figured Cindy could get through to her, but nothing was working! So Cindy said” She won’t let me in!” So I called Keiko and said, “Keiko, what’s going on?” And she said, “I just talked to Jonesey (from the other side!) and he said “Fuck it, you don’t have to go!” So I said, “Keiko, I’ll call you back in a few minutes” So I wait ten minutes and call her back and said” Keiko, I just spoke to Elvin, too!” She says “Oh, really?” And I said. “Yes, and he said ‘Tell her she HAS to go.’ So she said, “OK”. Well, we go to the church where the ceremony takes place and EVERYONE is there. It was like the history of jazz. Max Roach, Roy Haynes, Ron Carter, Hank Jones, Wynton Marsalis, etc. etc. They were all there, of course to pay respect. The ceremony started with Wynton Marsalis doing the New Orleans Funeral March through the church with all the great New Orleans musicians. Elvin had said he wanted this at his funeral. So they get done and I’m sitting there with Keiko for some time and I realize, “Oh my God, there has been nothing else planned! So I just stood up and went to the front of the crowd, introduced myself, and started giving a eulogy right there on the spot. Hundreds of people were there. Every issue of “Downbeat” magazine I read as a kid and every jazz record that moved me to tears were passing through my memory because the greatest living jazz musicians were all right there in front of me. I began ” We are here to mourn the passing, and to celebrate the life of a giant of music, a force of nature, and our dear friend Elvin Jones.” I went on for awhile and then, thank God, I had the clarity to invite anyone up who wanted to share the ways that Elvin touched them, changed them or moved them. A long line formed and people got up for the next hour and a half and told stories about Elvin..their own personal experiences with him as a man on a one-on-one basis. It was the most moving thing you could ever see and experience.

MC:
As a kid, you used to dig through the record bins looking for good jazz LPs. Not only were you into Elvin and the John Coltrane group, but drummers like Max Roach and Roy Haynes. You cut your teeth playing drums in jazz organ groups and the fifteen-piece house band at the Nairobi Lounge, backing artists like Etta James and BB King. From jazz, R&B and blues how were you drawn into the San Francisco rock scene?

MICHAEL: The scene in San Francisco was strong at the time. The hippie thing, The Fillmore, the music. It was impossible to be sixteen and a musician and not be affected by it in some way. I was always going to the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom to hear Charles Lloyd with Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette, Cream, The Yardbirds with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, and all the local groups as well.

MC:
Your Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech told of the coincidences that led you to Santana. On one of those trips to the Fillmore at age sixteen you got to sit in with Michael Bloomfield, Stephen Stills and Al Kooper. Your playing caught David Brown and Stan Marcum’s attention. Brown and Marcum approached you about replacing Doc Livingston as Santana’s drummer, but never got back to you. A year later you ran into the Santana band by chance, just as their issues with Livingston had really come to a head. An all-night jam ensued, Santana liked playing with you, and a year later you were at Woodstock. What struck you about the Santana musicians and their music during that first jam together?

MICHAEL: I had seen Santana at a church dance in Redwood City with my brother Kevin, and loved it. I remember saying to him “I want to play with that band”. I saw them at a high school dance as well. Really they were a jam band, but with the coolest grooves. I really don’t remember anything about the first time we jammed except that it was intense, I can tell you that! Santana was actually recording their first album for Columbia Records at Pacific Recorders in San Mateo. I used to go there and hustle studio time for one of my bands. That’s what I was doing the night I went up there. As I was walking in the front door, Doc Livingston was literally walking out! They had some kind of falling out. Some of the guys remembered me and we ended up jamming, and after that Carlos and Gregg took me in a room and asked me if I wanted to join the band. They followed me home to my parents’ house in Redwood City, where I woke up my folks and said I was moving to San Francisco, now!” So I got in their car and went to Santana’s house in Bernal Heights 
[ed: a hilly neighborhood in San Francisco’s Mission District]. 
In retrospect it must have been like telling my parents “I’m running away to join the circus!”

SCOTT E:
Where did Santana practice in the early years, a garage, a basement?

MICHAEL: They had a little practice space with brick covered walls somewhere in the Folsom Street area.

MC:
You turned down an offer to join the world-renowned Jefferson Airplane in favor of playing with little-known Santana, which didn’t even have a record deal yet. Did you have an intuitive feeling that the two groups were headed in opposite directions, or was it just a case of preferring Santana’s music? As it turns out, you made the right career decision!

MICHAEL: The Airplane were really big and famous at the time, but somehow they had heard of me. I visited them at their mansion on Fulton Street, and they invited me to go to LA with them when they were recording “After Bathing at Baxter’s”. My first airplane ride was with Jefferson Airplane! I remember Buddy Miles was on that flight too. Rest in Peace, Buddy. I stayed with Jorma Kaukonen in his hotel room. Jorma and Jack Casady became good friends of mine, as well as Marty Balin. So I’m staying with Jorma, and Jim Morrison comes by to visit. Then Eric Clapton comes by to bring a cassette tape to Jorma of a new group he’s really excited about called “The Band.” In the evening we go to the studio and David Crosby comes by with a song he wrote called “Triad” that he thought might be good for the Airplane to record. So I saw all that go down. I was just a kid who a year earlier had seen the Airplane and Santana at an outdoor show in Palo Alto, looking at Jack Casady and the way he was dressed and that vibe and saying to myself, “How does one get to be like that?” Well, I didn’t turn Jefferson Airplane down, it just didn’t work out for some reason. We always remained great friends, though, and still are to this day. Later, when I was with Santana and playing on the same bill with those guys all over the world, they were really happy for me. We were always like family.

MC:
Do you still remember your first gig with Santana, the venue, how it went, and the crowd reaction?

MICHAEL: I think the first gig I played with Santana was at a college somewhere in Northern California, maybe Fresno State. The show went really well. Afterwards, some people asked us to a party way out in the boonies. I didn’t really want to go. I was exhausted from the adrenaline of my first show and I just wanted to be by myself and take it all in, but they talked me into it and I didn’t want to be the new party pooper kid! So we go out to this house out in the country and of course there’s a bunch of people there. I’m sitting on the floor of the hallway talking to some people, one of which was apparently the hostess for the evening. Suddenly we hear this big racket from the front room, and all of a sudden this huge guy with a crazed look on his face is standing in the hallway where we are sitting. He sees the girl, sees me, and comes after me. He started beating on me and kicking me, just wailing on me. I fought to get up off the floor and get away from him. Everybody was yelling and screaming and running, trying to get out of the house. I finally got away and ran out the door. Gregg Rolie called my name and said “Over here!” so I ran to Gregg’s car, a nice black Porsche. I had blood running down my face, I remember that it was hard to see because of all the blood! Meanwhile, this big guy is coming after me. I get in the car and the guy picks up a huge boulder and throws it at the car. We got away and decided I should be taken to the hospital because I was covered in blood. At the hospital the whole band was there, the managers and Rico Reyes too. They cleaned me up, and I was OK, just really sore from the kicking and beating. So we’re leaving and some of guys started yelling, Rico specifically, saying “Let’s go kick that guy’s ass!” And I’m saying ‘Where were all you tough guys when he was beating up on me? You all ran and left me to get my ass kicked! Let’s just go home and call it a night.” Well, apparently, the guy had escaped from a mental hospital that night. He was the ex-boyfriend of the girl I was sitting with and he had brought a gun with him! So, that was the night of my first show with Santana! When I got home that night in San Mateo, where Gregg and I were now living, I wrote one of my first songs, “Mushroom Lady.” The first night I played The Fillmore with Santana was another story. They were already very popular and everyone knew who the guys in the band were. When I came out on stage the crowd saw that Doc Livingston had been replaced on drums by this new kid that they didn’t know, and there was some booing. That was uncomfortable, to say the least. Well, when it came time for “Soul Sacrifice” I played the drum solo, and at the end of the solo I got a standing ovation. From then on, the Santana fans accepted me!

MC:
Michael, without meaning to live in the past, we need to give due credit to you for being part of something life-changing. Like the Beatles playing the Ed Sullivan Show or Miles Davis and Bob Dylan going electric, the advent of Santana marked a sea change in the musical universe. The first three Santana albums meant an awful lot to the patrons of this Café and so many others around the world. You and your gifted band sparked our lifelong fascination with music, inspiring many of us to become musicians. We fans all know what emotions and memories we associate with those first three classic albums, but we’d be interested in the impressions of someone who helped create them. Looking back to the records “Santana,” “Abraxas” and “Santana III,” can you think of one phrase that describes the emotion that you associate with each album and another phrase to represent the process and atmosphere of making each of them?

MICHAEL: Thanks for your kind words. Let me see if I can come with the phrases that you asked for. For the first album, “Santana,” for the emotion I would say “Exhilarating” and for the process and atmosphere “Intense.” For the second album, “Abraxas,” for the emotion I would say “Focused” and the process and atmosphere would be “great songs” and “a seriously unified band enjoying each other and taking great delight in the music we were making together.” For the third album, “Santana lll, I would say for the emotion “a bit scattered” and the process and atmosphere “still making great music, but not so unified.”

SCOTT E:
What are your favorite Santana Band memory and your favorite Santana album overall?

MICHAEL: There are so many good memories with that band. I think the gig we did at Tanglewood co-heading with Miles Davis was one of the best. Of course Woodstock was an incredible experience, as was seeing the “Woodstock“ movie for the first time with the whole band in a theater in New York City. We waited in line with all the other folks for the earlier show to get out, and when we saw our segment it was the first time we had ever seen it. When I saw the drum solo, and myself split on the screen like that, I didn’t know if I should stand up in the theater and yell “That’s me!“ or sink down low in the seat. I think I just sat there with my jaw open and just took it in. Then it made sense that earlier, while we were standing in line waiting to get in, the people who were coming out of the earlier show were pointing at us and looking at us kind of funny! I would consider both “Abraxas” and “Caravanserai” my favorite Santana albums.

MC:
You and David Brown really grooved together. I noticed recently that the two of you are cited in the drum & bass instruction book “Get Locked” as an example of a tight rhythm section. We remember David’s warm smile and deep bass lines, but never had the opportunity to get to know the man. Can you share any fond memories of knowing and playing with David, and your thoughts about what made him special as a person and a musician? Can you think of any anecdotes that illustrate what he was about?

MICHAEL: David was the sweetest man, though somewhat of an enigma, in the way that you never quite knew what was really going on with him. He had the most beautiful green eyes, and was stunningly good looking. He was always open to trying new things on the bass, and always open to just holding down the groove as well. He lived with a piano player by the name of Albert Gianquinto, a white blues player from Chicago, who also wrote “Incident at Neshabur” and helped the band arrange some music from time to time. I think Albert also came up with the name “Toussaint l’Overture.” Albert was the first white guy I knew who was a Black Panther, and was the one that got us to play at the Black Panther Benefit in Berkeley, which was not a great experience. We must have been frisked half a dozen times before we actually played. Anyway David and Albert were roommates and best friends. David was a pleasure to be around and a pleasure to make music with. I realized one funny thing about David one night when we were playing “Jingo.“ The bass line is pretty simple and constant in that song, as are the drums, but that night I looked down at David’s feet and they were keeping time to some other beat than what we were playing! I realized that if I looked at his feet for very long I was going to get thrown off completely, so I wouldn’t look at his feet anymore! One of the things about that original rhythm section was that everybody was so unique unto themselves, but somehow together it made a sound and groove like no other. It was true chemistry, and David had a lot to do with that sound.

PJ & MC:
How pronounced was the Afro-Cuban influence in Santana at the time that you joined? Did you have an impression as to who or what had steered the band in that direction?

MICHAEL: Well, they were already doing that before I got there. Santana was playing “Jingo“ and “Soul Sacrifice“ before Chepito and I were in the band. I know Michael Carabello and Carlos used to go to Aquatic Park to listen to the conga players, and I believe this is where Marcus Malone came from. I think it was Marcus Malone who came up with the name “Soul Sacrifice”, but you would have to hear him say it to get the full impact! “Souuul SACrifice! So I’ve heard. I’m sure that it was a combination of the conga players, Marcus Malone and Michael Carabello, and Carlos that first brought that Afro-Cuban element to the band.

MC:
What were your first impressions of playing with Chepito? Had you ever played with a percussionist of his caliber before? Carlos and Gregg have said that his sense of time was extraordinary.

MICHAEL: I was in the band before Chepito by a little bit. Apparently Carabello heard him at Aquatic Park and was blown away, got his number and told the guys about him. I think they were thinking about adding timbales, but Michael had heard him play congas. We all went to this club in the Mission District to hear Chepito’s band “The Aliens”, and see him play. Chepito not only played timbales and congas, but also trumpet and drum set as well. He was a complete firecracker of a player who just brought the house down, dressed in those big frilly shirts with the huge collars and the greased back hair! Carabello introduced him to Carlos and they spoke in Spanish. Chepito’s English was not so fluent at this time, but soon afterward he was in the band. He was like a fish out of water initially, in a cultural sense, because he was in a brand new world hanging out with us. Musically it was incredible and natural, but I think the scene we were in, the Fillmore, the hippies, etc., were a shock for Chepito. The rehearsals started taking on a whole new vibe with the advent of timbales, and two conga players on “Soul Sacrifice,“ for instance. Between their new drummer, me, and their new percussionist, Chepito, the band must have felt an incredible surge of new energy, now that I think back on it. Chepito is probably one of the most natural musicians any of us had ever met, and his musicianship and sound had an incredible influence on the band.

VICENTE M.: 
How was your relationship with Chepito? How do you rate him as a trap drummer, and did he play traps on any Santana tracks?

MICHAEL: I had a great relationship with Chepito, except for the times he called me “Flipper” and “whitey motherfucker!” It was all in good fun, of course, and quite funny as well. Chepito could play his ass off on the drums. He could play anything, really. Yes, he did play drum set on some Santana tracks, including “Samba Pa Ti, and “Everybody’s Everything,” and I didn’t have any problem with it.

MC: It looks like everybody was cracking up during the photo shoot for the “Abraxas” poster insert, and Chepito looks like he is responsible. Did Chepito do something to make you all “lose it?”

MICHAEL: It was probably Chepito that said something. I don’t remember what it was that he did, but I’d bet that it was him!

MC:
Santana came to prominence in San Francisco soon after the Summer of Love, and the city’s Haight-Ashbury district was a center of that era’s global youth counterculture. Carlos has said that he considers himself a “hippie,” but you have implied that you didn’t identify with the hippie mindset or lifestyle. What were the aspects of “hippiedom” that you were not comfortable with, and was this a philosophical difference between you and Carlos, or just a difference in terminology?

MICHAEL: I can’t speak for Carlos, of course, but I would tend to think that what he means is that if being a hippie means to be for “positive change and love for all,” then in spirit he’s a hippie, and who isn’t? Back in those days, though, I always felt a bit like the cynical outsider observing from a distance. I never felt like Arlo Guthrie or John Sebastian did at Woodstock! To paint you a picture of what it was like in Santana early on, we considered ourselves to be a bit different from the Grateful Dead, the Airplane and the other bands that were happening around the Bay Area, although we loved the scene and were great friends with the other groups. Part of the hippie mentality about music seemed to be that if you got your part wrong or didn’t play well, they would say something like, “Well, that’s cool man, it’s really beautiful that you did your best. Tomorrow’s another day.” When I first got into Santana and took my place on the couch in their Bernal Heights home, though, I saw that for Santana it wasn’t like that at all! This was no hippie love fest, it was more like “Motherfucker, get it right!” “Fuck you, man, YOU get it right!” Back in those days I would practice a lot. I’d be working on my hands, doing rudiments or whatever and I had this mantra while I practiced certain things. It was: “I’m NOT a hippie, NOT a hippie, NOT a hippie.” Anyway, I learned quickly in Santana that you’d better get some thick skin as fast as you can, otherwise your head will be spinning! They would laugh at you, make fun of you, talk about your mama, and whatever, but it was great and I loved it! We were all very fond of each other and protective of each other, and I think we all really appreciated the diversity and what each of us brought to the table. Being in Santana was like being in a street gang, but the weapon was music!

FROM MC: Speaking of hippies, one of your first non-Santana recording sessions was David Crosby’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name.” Most of CSN&Y, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were on board, plus Joni Mitchell and Gregg Rolie, and you got a songwriting credit for the track “What Are Their Names.” This set was named one of the “Greatest Albums of All Time” by “Mojo” magazine, and many consider it an overlooked masterpiece. Care to reminisce?

MICHAEL: Speaking of Hippies! Now that was a hippie recording session! Very open, let it flow, kind of thing. David had some songs, though. I suppose David Crosby always has songs! The reason we were credited for that song was because it grew out of a jam. David and I were hanging out a bit back then. He would come to my house or I would go to his houseboat and we would listen to music and discuss Dylan Thomas. I enjoyed his spirit and his intensity. He was the one “LA” musician that would really hang out with the Bay Area scene, like the Dead and the Airplane. So basically he just invited his friends to play on his album.

MC:
Playing alongside congueros and timbaleros is a skill that wasn’t often taught to trap drummers in the 60’s, yet you managed to form a tight battery with Chepito and Michael Carabello. You’ve mentioned that in order to be heard you had to use thicker cymbals than you would have liked, and that the sound of your toms tended to be swallowed up by the conga and timbal tones. In fact, your hi-hat, snare and crash were often what were most audible, especially live. When we could hear your bass drum and toms they often seemed to be doubling the bass guitar or congas, except with fills on song intros and the more rock-oriented tunes. What playing philosophy did you have to adopt in order to function as part of Santana’s Latin Rock percussion section?

MICHAEL: I was somewhat limited in my Latin playing, and still am. I brought more of a jazz approach, which I think worked well with some those earlier tunes like “Treat.” I had to quickly learn how to stay out of the way of the congas and timbales, and the higher frequencies of the hi-hat and snare would help with that. I would tend to stay on the hi-hat as long as possible until the chorus or the ending or outro sections of the songs. The songs often went to double time on the outros and that is where I’d crank up the energy and go to the bell of the ride cymbal and use the toms. Yes, the bass drum would often match the bass guitar and the toms would match the conga rhythm. We had a lot of drums, a thick organ sound and Carlos playing rhythm as well, when he wasn’t playing the melody or soloing, so the idea was to sound like one big rhythm group. Very often it was just that: one huge rhythm, and live it was a monster!

MC:
On sections of cha-cha style tunes like “Oye Como Va” and “Guajira,” there are sections where your hi-hat seems to be simulating the sound of a guiro in a salsa band. Were you consciously going for a guiro-type pattern, or just looking for something that “sounded good?”

MICHAEL: Yes, I was consciously going for the guiro sound from a salsa band. I would try to use it strategically between a closed hi-hat sound with straight quarter notes on the rim of the snare, and then bring that guiro hi-hat for a chorus or a lift in a chorus, again still trying to save the bell of the cymbal for later. Speaking of “Guajira”, that is one of my all-time favorite Santana songs. I love the vocal that Rico sang, the melody of the vocal, I loved the time change to 6/8, and I think Carlos’ performance may be one of my all-time favorites of his. So melodic and so passionate! I love that song!

MC:
While living in New York in the post-Santana years, you studied with a highly respected conguero and percussion teacher, the late Frankie Malabe. As Frankie taught you about Latin rhythms. you realized that the drum parts you’d been playing in Santana weren’t authentically Latin. You definitely weren’t –clueless– back in the Santana days (I remember your Afro-Cuban “cascara” or “palito” pattern on the hi-hat in “Para Los Rumberos”). Still, how would you have changed your general approach or specific drum parts with Santana had you understood Latin rhythms the way you do now? Feel free to get technical with us…there are lots of drummers and percussionists in the house here at Moonflower Cafe!

MICHAEL: To tell you the truth, I hope I wouldn’t change anything! Like I said earlier, the rhythm section was a bit quirky, but it worked well together. Michael Carabello didn’t play “correctly,” and neither did David Brown. I barely knew Latin music, but made it fit with those guys. I’ve heard many incarnations of Santana since then, with some of the best players in the world, players who can play circles around anyone of us, and the best they can do for THOSE songs is to try to get that magic that we had. You have to know that I mean that with all respect to those players. I admire them and look up to them, and they are friends of mine, and they will tell you the same thing I just did. Incidentally, that hi-hat pattern on “Para Los Rumberos” was taught to me by Coke Escovedo! Studying with Frankie Malabe was a beautiful experience for me. I was self-conscious, because I was the drummer from Santana and was expected to know all these rhythms, but I didn’t! So I just flat out told Frankie that and he worked with me. I still work out of his book, but I still consider myself an unseasoned Latin player.

VICENTE M.:
John Bonham was a loud drummer, yet he seemed to primarily use his wrists. Did playing with Santana force you to do something about your volume? How about your hardware and sticks…did you have to compensate?

MICHAEL: I never was a real loud drummer, and I’m still not. In fact, what I’ve realized in putting my new band together is that I want to play softer and softer but still really drive the band. So you have to have dynamics. With Santana, it was loud, but nothing like it is today! I think that the band was really, really intense energy-wise. It was more of a collective energy and pulse that moved the people, not volume. I never had a loud backbeat, for instance, that’s why I’m not a true “rock” drummer, and guys who know will tell you that. I didn’t really have to compensate for anything. When the energy took you, you just went with it. I was and still am on the lighter side, double strokes and all. For the life of me, no matter how much I practice, I still can’t get a good, sustained single stroke roll!

MC:
Last October at Seattle’s Experience Music Project (EMP), you, Carabello, Adrian Areas and Alphonso Johnson presented “Santana Rhythms,” a discussion/demonstration showing how the classic Santana rhythm arrangements were created, inventive patterns that were part of the greatness of the original Santana group. What explanation did you give the audience? Can you describe to our readers how you guys concocted the grooves for songs like “Soul Sacrifice,” “Jungle Strut” and “Batuka?”

MICHAEL: That would be tough to put into words. We are hoping to do more with that group, and possibly do a DVD. Remember, they were already playing “Soul Sacrifice” when I got in the band. I had never really heard what Doc was playing, so I just made up my own part. It’s so simple that I think all these great drummers that play with Carlos must be embarrassed to play it, or maybe it’s just that Carlos wants to keep working on it and make it interesting to play after all these years. It’s just a complete 16th note pattern on the snare with the snares off, and me striking a tom on the one of each beat, right with David’s bass, and then the accent on the snare every 4th beat or every other 4th beat. Of course there’s more to it than that, but technically, that’s it. Same with “Jingo,” all floor tom playing like a swing jungle rhythm on the floor tom, right with the bass again, but with accents on the snare every other bar. That’s what Carlos calls the “booty beat,” because it’s that accent that makes you dance. “Jungle Strut” is a tune that I brought to the band after I heard it on saxophonist Gene Ammons’ record. Bernard Purdie played drums on the original, and I was just trying to cop Bernard’s thing. Of course ours was really electric, and much different than Gene’s. We had that solo section where Carlos, Neal and Gregg trade solos. David and I go into an almost Motown type of thing, or the bass does anyway, and I play all over the snare and toms in that same rhythm as the bass, but spread out over the drums. See, that section is like “Soul Sacrifice,” in that I was playing a rhythm around the drums, not just a backbeat, and I really enjoyed doing that whenever possible in the band, whenever the music called for it. “Batuka” is another story, it’s a bit more unnatural, with a lot of different sections to it. The cowbell was the signature sound on that song, along with the guitar riff.

MC:
You and all of the other Santana band members were listed as co-authors of the songs “Savor,” “Persuasion,” “Treat,” “You Just Don’t Care,” “Soul Sacrifice,” “Batuka” and “Toussaint l’Overture.” Can you talk a little about the “group writing” process with the original band…did these songs evolve from jams?” Did you come up with any of the melodies or lyrics for those songs, as you did on later albums?

MICHAEL: “Savor” was a jam. I play a jazz swing beat with Latin tom groove. “Persuasion” was Gregg’s tune that we put a monster groove sound behind…maybe somebody else came up with the middle section. A lot of the writing was done by Gregg and Carlos, and then people would come up with ideas for other sections, or where the song could or should go. “Treat” was Gregg’s too, his Eddie Harris tribute, and then Carlos would come up with a melody and play that. We would all work together on the arrangements for most everything. The great thing is that we would just jam the tunes until the groove was right. We would spend a considerable amount of time on the percussion parts, the drum and bass parts, so that the whole thing, no matter what the song was, FELT good. When everyone would start smiling and saying “That shit is BAD”, then we knew it was good! Oh, and just maybe, maybe, we might spend a few minutes on the vocals then. We never spent time on the vocals! “You Just Don’t Care” was Gregg’s. Being a keyboard player or a guitar player in a band full of percussionists, you’re going to be doing most of the writing. I don’t think it was until a bit later that I started doing lyrics.

MC:
Your drum solo on “Soul Sacrifice” is one of the most celebrated in rock history. By the time Santana played Woodstock had you standardized that solo, or was it totally improvised on the Woodstock stage?

MICHAEL: Trust me, it was improvised! Every time I see it I cringe when I get to playing really softly on that Woodstock solo! I keep saying to myself, “What were you thinking, there’s a half million people out there, keep the groove going! It seems to have worked out, though!

PJ & VICENTE M.:
Can you share your most vivid memory of Woodstock?

MICHAEL:

Well, Woodstock! Flying in on the helicopter was really something. You could see, first of all, that the interstate was just a complete parking lot. They closed it down, because people just gave up, got out of their cars and started walking towards the site. There was no way that the police could tow and impound that many cars! We had known from the news reports that the whole thing was out of hand, which is why we had to take a helicopter in…there was no other way to access the site. Flying over the crowd was like a revelation. Nobody had ever seen that many people together, and this for a rock concert! Of course, it was more than a rock concert, because people felt and thought they were changing the world at that time. That was the predominant feeling of most of the crowd, I would say. For us, it was a big deal, although we had already played some big pop festivals, like the Atlanta Pop Festival and others. Remember, though, that we didn’t have an album out and nobody had even heard of us. I think Bill Graham got us $500 to play at Woodstock. We had to win over the crowd, and it just so happened that our kind of “tribal” music fit this Woodstock “tribe” just right. I remember thinking from up on stage that it was like being on the shore of the ocean and looking out at the horizon, and as far as you could see there were just people, and then there was the sky. When we finished “Soul Sacrifice” and the roar of the crowd went up, we knew we had done our job. It was about as exhilarating as you could possibly imagine.

MC:
“Vibe” magazine named “Abraxas” “one of the essential albums of the 20th century.” Any comments on having been a part of that landmark recording?

MICHAEL: It’s very rewarding to be a part of something that people feel that strongly about so many years later, something that has had that kind of impact on people. I don’t know if we were at our peak, but we were certainly at our prime during the making of that record, and it was a fun record to make! We weren’t fighting or arguing. The arrangements were pretty much set, but for us it was always about the performance for the recordings. Did it feel good? And it did!

MC:
Is it true that you were the one who edited the singles that were to be released from “Abraxas?” In retrospect, a lot was riding on this task! How did you end up taking it on and what guidelines were you working with?

MICHAEL: I didn’t tell anybody I was doing it. Probably some of them still don’t know it, and I wasn’t interested in getting credit for it. I just knew that it had to be done for radio, thought I knew where it should be cut without hurting the integrity of the song, and went in with an engineer and cut the tape. Everybody liked it and that was that!

MC:
Abdul Mati Klarwein’s vivid, mystical artwork has adorned a number of album covers, including Santana’s “Abraxas,” Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew,” and your CD “Two Doors.” Have you been a long-time admirer of Klarwein’s art, and was it your idea to use his painting “The Annunciation” as the “Abraxas” cover?

MICHAEL: That was totally Mike Carabello’s idea. He’s the one the one that saw it and really pushed the band to use it. I think Miles already had “Bitches Brew” out, but Michael saw this and just went for it, and we loved it. Michael always had a good visual sense. Both Mike and Carlos use visual terms when trying to explain a piece of music, and Carlos will also speak in emotional terms. Michael will say, ‘Man, it’s like you know, when you see The Four Horseman coming out of the night sky, with the whips in their hands, pushing the horses to go faster, that’s that what this groove is like! Or Carlos will say, “Man, it’s like French-kissing your first girlfriend for the first time!” Or “You know man, there’s like human love and divine love, right? Well, we want BOTH on this song, OK?”

MC:
I understand that you and Gregg discovered fifteen-year-old Neal Schon while checking out a friend’s club gig. Schon was the guitarist in your friend’s band, and you were so knocked out by Neal’s playing that you got onstage to jam with him. Though you and Neal went your separate ways after “Caravanserai,” you reunited to rock out with him in HSAS and again in Abraxas Pool. What is it that gave you and Neal good musical and personal chemistry?

MICHAEL: We heard Neal at “The Poppycock” on University Avenue in Palo Alto. When I was younger I used to play jazz there with organist Paris Bertolucci, sax player Ken Baker (who later worked with John Lee Hooker), and a guitar player named Kevin…those guys taught me a lot. Gregg and I went to The Poppycock one night and there was this really young kid just wailing on guitar. It was Neal, still in high school and just blowing everybody away. He was playing Clapton style Blues and English rock, just what Gregg was into. Gregg freaked out, and he really wanted this kid in Santana! Gregg was writing more rock style tunes in the band, like “Persuasion,” “You Just Don’t Care,” “Taboo,” etc., and that was a big part of what Gregg brought to the table. Somehow Gregg convinced the band, and Carlos especially, that Neal would bring something “extra” to Santana, and he did. Neal was a very exciting player, and for a while there he and Carlos really enjoyed challenging each other and pushing each other. I’ve always thought it was really huge of Carlos to let another guitar player into the band, and I’ve also always thought that it must have been incredible for Neal to all of a sudden be placed in this situation of playing in a really big band at such a young age. I know, I’m not one to talk, but Neal was still in high school!

VICENTE M. & MC:
Michael, you have said that you ask Carlos to play “Toussaint l’Overture” whenever you sit in, and that you have memories of the high energy and intensity of recording that song. Does this make “Toussaint l’Overture” your favorite track from the original Santana band? It is one of our favorite Santana tunes.

MICHAEL: I’ve always loved “Toussaint” and it’s fun to play when sitting in with the band. Like I said, there are other tunes, like “Guajira”, and “Song of the Wind” that I love, too, and many others. I still love “Black Magic Woman!”

VICENTE M. & MC:
”Toussaint l’Overture” has a great drum roll intro that seems to have come directly from Pello El Afrokan’s old original recording of “Maria Caracoles.” Is there a story behind it, like who brought the Pello lick into the session, etc? Your cymbal crashes to signal the song’s end are something else as well. Some of the alternate versions of “Toussaint l’Overture” that have been released feature arrangements that are different from the studio version on the original “Santana III” release. How long did the band work on the song before coming up with that final “Santana III” version?

MICHAEL: I don’t know anything about the original recording of that break, nor do I remember who brought it to the band. Most likely it was Chepito or Carabello. I recently heard a live version I had never heard before that was quite a bit different than the final arrangement. Often times we would play the tunes live for quite awhile before we settled on a final arrangement and recorded it.

MC:

“VOLR” mentions that you introduced Santana to Gene Ammons’ “Jungle Strut.” What are some of your other contributions to the band’s repertoire and arrangements that we fans may not be aware of?

MICHAEL: Yes, I brought “Jungle Strut”. I brought “Stone Flower”, and I was into all the Brazilian music that worked its way into the band. Carlos related to that because of all the beautiful Brazilian melodies and rhythms, and the band had always been into Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66, “Mas Que Nada” and all that. We would all bring stuff in to play for each other, and if we didn’t play a particular tune, we would cop the vibe of something and make up our own. We really were a very mood-capturing band. We would create a mood with the groove and make music on top of that.

MC:
In 1970, Bill Graham booked Miles Davis to tour as Santana’s opening act. Being cognizant of Miles’ stature, this must have been a big deal for you! Did hanging out with Miles and his band members like Chick Corea and Airto Moreira and hearing them night after night plant the seed that led you and Carlos toward the sophisticated jazz and Brazilian-influenced sounds of “Caravanserai,” “Welcome” and “Borboletta?”

MICHAEL: Of course! And on one tour we had Weather Report open for us, just so we could stand back there and watch them every night! Carlos and I and Michael Carabello as well, were already listening to this music and being influenced by it anyway, much to the chagrin of some of the other guys in the band! I felt like there were all of these incredible things happening at the time, musically. There was a revolution going on! You had Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, Cream, and then you had Miles Davis with “Bitches Brew” and then Weather Report and Return to Forever, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Tony Williams Lifetime, and John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders on the jazz side. I think Carlos and I felt terribly excited about this happening movement in music and we desperately wanted to somehow be a part of that, or at least let it be reflected in our music.

MC:
Simon Leng describes you as having been “taken aback” when Carlos first described the direction he had in mind for the band after the “Santana III” album, and unhappy about continuing to gig after Carabello, David Brown (and Chepito, for a time) left the band. Still, to an outsider’s view, the musical and personal bonds you had with Carlos seemed to be growing stronger, to the point that you appeared to be co-leader of the “New Santana Band.” Any recollections of what you were thinking and feeling at the time?

MICHAEL: Like I said above, I was right there with Carlos. If anything, it was he and I both that were sharing these new interests, and we took great delight in the new direction musically. We were tired of “Rock and Roll”. We were tired of the music and we were tired of the drugged-out lifestyle that went with it. We were not innocents, but we now wanted a change in a variety of ways, not the least of which was the music. It felt like walking into a brand new candy store! It was also a survival mechanism. It felt like “Change or Die!”

MC:
Michael, you and Carlos came from very different backgrounds, yet among the members of the “classic” Santana band you two seemed to develop the strongest friendship and most solid musical partnership. Carlos has even said that you and he were “kindred spirits” and still “have a beautiful relationship.” To what do you attribute this?

MICHAEL: The way we feel about music and what it means to us on different levels. Also the way we walk through the world; our spiritual quests. We enjoy sharing our experiences with each other. When Carlos had the incredible reception for “Supernatural”, I was nothing but happy for him. I took my son Sam to the Grammy ceremony where he won all those awards, just to be there for and with him. Carlos didn’t know I was there, until later, but I wanted to be there. I take joy in his joy. When I did see him later at a party celebrating his triumphant evening, they took me into a small back room where he was having an intimate dinner with his family, I came in and he got up and came over and gave me a hug and said, “Now it’s complete.” I’ll never forget that. We have a bond. When the original Santana band was at it’s peak, and we were on the road, Carlos and I would get together practically every night after the show and just hang out and listen to music, music, music. Girls would come by and be in the room, and Carlos and I were like, “Man, have you heard this new Aretha tune, or this new Miles track or this new Wayne Shorter CD? Or this Nonato Buzar tune, or whatever. And the girls would just be sitting there, bored, and completely ignored! Eventually they would say, “Where’s the party?” We’d say, it’s obviously right here, but you might find Chepito’s room more to your liking!

MC:
Given the personalities involved and the heady times you all went through, what would it have taken to keep the players from the “Woodstock era” Santana together, plus or minus Neal, Rico Reyes and Coke Escovedo? Looking back, is there any way that lineup could have been salvaged for a few more years?

MICHAEL: Oh, I suppose if we had agreed to group therapy like Metallica or Aerosmith have done, perhaps we could have survived! And I’m not knocking therapy for bands! Seems like a great idea to me. After all, it’s all about relationships to the nth degree. But from where we were sitting, Carlos and I were going in one direction, and Neal and Gregg were going in another. Michael and David were in their own world at the time, trying to be Sly Stone. We didn’t have good leadership from management, and it was like the blind leading the blind. So I always figure, get back to the music, and that will guide you. After “Caravanserai,” I think they’d had it! You know, “What is this jazz shit?!” So Neal and Gregg hooked up with Herbie Herbert, who was our roadie. Herbie saw what they were after and provided encouragement and a support system for them to start to explore what they’d been missing from Santana, and so Journey was born. It all makes perfect sense, really.

MACK & MC:
The October/November 1971 incarnation of Santana included Mingo Lewis, Pete and Coke Escovedo and Tom Rutley. What did you think of that lineup? Do you have tapes of most of the old shows from that time period, and do you go back to listen to them?

MICHAEL: That was a group of great musicians, but it wasn’t a band sound. Tom Rutley was my bass player friend from the big band at College of San Mateo. The bandleader there, Dick Crest, gave me a real break and let me in that band, and it was a great experience. We used to play a bunch of arrangements by Neal Schon’s dad, Matt Schon. Tom Rutley taught me a ton about time and feel and really mentored me in the big band, as did Dick Crest, but Tom was a fish out of water in the Santana environment. We were like freaks to him, I think, especially on the road, but he did a great job on “Caravanserai” and I’ll always be happy that I was able to share that with him and give him some measure of thanks for the things he had taught me. I don’t think I have any live tapes from that period. Mingo had joined up in New York City at Madison Square Garden at the big showdown out there, and of course the Escovedo Brothers were well known in the Bay Area. They were both great players, but such a different sound than our original lineup.

MC:
You led Carlos out of the blues to explore Coltrane, Miles, film music, Gabor Szabo, Elvin Jones, ever intent on how the two of you might take those influences and make them your own. You brought the legacy of your jazz heroes into the Santana band in your playing, writing and repertoire choices. You also brought jazz players into the Latin Rock orbit like Tom Rutley (Santana & Azteca), Hadley Caliman (Santana & Malo), Tom Harrell (Santana, Malo & Azteca), and Lenny White (Azteca). Couldn’t we say that you were largely responsible for giving the Latin Rock genre its jazz tinge?

MICHAEL: Well, I gave Santana it’s “jazz tinge,” perhaps. If Santana created the Latin Rock genre, then I suppose that could be said, but there was already Latin Jazz with Cal Tjader and people like that. It was just the context we put it in, I suppose.

MC: Did you sit in often at Andre’s nightclub with trumpeter/flugelhornist Luis Gasca & Friends, and what were those jams like? What memories do you have of Luis in general and of playing on his album “For Those Who Chant?” Some Santana observers feel that being involved in “For Those Who Chant” was pivotal in the development of Carlos’ jazz playing…any thoughts on that subject?

MICHAEL: I sat in all the time at Andre’s. That was a lot of fun. Everybody was going down there and playing, guys from War, Larry Graham, Doug Rauch, Mike Clark and Paul Jackson from Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, and all the Santana guys. It was quite a scene there for a while. Druggy, with lots of cocaine going around, but some good music too. I remember Luis Gasca pretty well, but don’t really remember the making of “For Those Who Chant.” I don’t know what impression playing on that session made on Carlos. Luis was older than us and a bit more experienced, having played with Mongo Santamaria, Stan Kenton, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Cal Tjader, and many Latin groups. He was also playing in San Francisco with Janis Joplin, Van Morrison and members of the Dead and the Airplane, among others. Luis talked really fast, with a slight lisp. He was always running around, hustling something up, trying to make things happen. I always liked his spirit.

PIERROT JAIN
(in Switzerland): Michael, thanks a lot for giving us the opportunity to place questions..it’s very much appreciated. For me, you were always the ultimate Santana drummer, but beyond that you had a big influence concerning Santana’s musical direction. It was sad for me and other fans when you left Santana. “Caravanserai“ is till today one of my favorite Santana albums. Along with “Love Devotion Surrender“, “Welcome“ and “Borboletta“ it has never been equalled. That sound is like getting balsam for the soul.

MICHAEL: Thank you, Pierrot.

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Tickets and further information can be found atLatinRockInc.com

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It seems appropriate at this festive time of the year to perhaps remember the true meaning of Christmas, apart from commercialism, spending, presents, plus eating and drinking. And to also relate it to a Latin rock theme for this web-blog.

In 2000 a Latin rock flavoured CD slipped out largely unnoticed under the auspices of Dr Bernie Gonzalez, who was the long time manager of veteran grupo Malo and is the chief instigator of the Alex Autism Awareness/Voices Of Latin Rock shows. (These are coming up to their 9^th show in January 2013).

 The original pressing was for 2000 copies which has since sold thru, but the good news is Dr Gonzalez has spoken of an upcoming 2013 re-release. So anyone interested will be able to track this worthy CD down next year and add it to his or her Latin rock collection.

[Show as slideshow]

Bernie Gonzalez remembers, “At that time Tony Menjivar approached me to listen to some new music they had going on. I had left both the Malo music scene and the music business thing at that time. It was at a time when Tony had just become involved in this Christian ministry and I became the executive producer. At the time I had just gotten married and my daughter Samantha was just one year old. I didn’t want people to know I was doing the Executive producer role.So that’s why my daughter’s name is on the credits as Executive Producer. We thought we’d honour her birthday like that. I also played guitar on one of the cuts. That was Tony throwing me a biscuit to get me more involved (laughs). It is funny because Tony did his ministry at a show the day after a recent Voices Of Latin Rock show in Denver and he has grown so much in his ministry and in his music since back then. I was so impressed that we are going to re-release the Bueno CD next year (2013) and for me the music really stands up. It sounds really fresh, not at all like it’s ten years old. The difference in Tony is day and night after ten years of him being a minister. He is so much more credible and has so much more conviction. Now this is a good time to release the music again.”

Gonzalez also opined, “We were gonna’ work with a pastor/minister called Mario Murillo, he had taken the guys back East. We were going to work with this guy and he was promising big things but it did not happen? The Bueno project was well received at first but it kind of died out. They combined the message very well, with the Latin rock thing. The musicians were all great, they were no slouches.”

 The CD in question was simply called BUENO, a play on the word Malo, with Malo meaning “bad” and Bueno meaning “good”. The album is a little known but beautifully recorded classic. It is Latin Rock with a difference though. Many of the members within the sessions were members of the Malo group. The project was helmed and dreamed up by Gabriel Manzo (Malo guitarist) with musical compadre Tony Menjivar, (who, at that time was Malo’s long time conga drummer and musical director). At that time both Manzo and Menjivar had tried to bring in “newer” sounds to the Malo song catalogue. The songs Techno Rumba and Ritmo Tropical support their attempt at a more fresh sound for the band.With Arcelio Garcia (Mr Malo himself as the lead vocalist) since the band’s inception in 1971 in San Francisco in the head slot, these three forged a tough Malo band sound throughout the eighties, nineties and into the new millennium. During many personnel changes in back up singers, bassists and horn players, these three musicians stayed as a constant.

Bueno however was a very different musical enterprise to Malo. The main difference was its emphasis on the teachings and spiritual redemption of Jesus Christ. The album is soaked with a reverential atmosphere but this ambience does not in any detract from the glorious material and musicality presented herein. The band made good use of drummers Gregg Errico (from Sly’s original band and who also played in a side project that Manzo and Menjivar had going on called Many Faces). Bobby Gaviola, who was Sapo’s original cooking drummer and recorded for their debut album in 1974, ably handled the other drum duties. The added presence of Leo Rosales on timbales, alongside later Malo timbalero Gibby Ross, ensured a spicy topping to the illustrious drum kit playing.

Gabriel Manzo is a stunning Latin rock player and has not received his just deserts in the pantheon of Latin rock players. Alongside Carlos, Jorge Santana, Neal Schon, Oscar Estrella, Abel Zarate and more, Gabe has ploughed a consistent path with a sensitive but dynamic approach to this style of guitar picking. I remember a gig in 1999, held in a club in Ventura California, just outside Los Angeles. I attended this gig with the Malo band and one of the highlights was an extended guitar solo by Manzo. This was on an earlier Sapo tune, funnily enough called Sapo’s Montuno. Here, Gabe treated the assembled audience to a dazzling display of lightning fast flurries, melodic and lyrical runs, as well as soulful and bluesy licks that had the crowd roaring their approval. This type of Latino rock playing by Gabe and on this particular track is available on an independent release called Malo: Rocks The Rockies, if you are able to search it out. Anyone hearing this will grasp the sense of dynamism and use of space and motion to drive the solo onwards, steadily building it to a momentous climax. The aforementioned two titles Ritmo Tropical and Techno Rumba are also to be found on the Latin Legends Live (Thump Records) and En Vivo Live / Malo (EMI Latin) CD releases.

A funny aspect to the gig was that Gabe and I were somehow late and missed the band bus on to the venue. We managed to hitch a mad ride in the back of an open top truck. We were hanging on for dear life as we drove to the nightspot where the show was to begin, with Tierra as the support band.Manzo’s cohort in Malo, Tony Menjivar was yet another Mission District conga drummer prodigy, one of the many percussionists who had their musical chops honed and together at a very young age. Other players like Gilberto Ross, Roberto Quintana, Adrian Areas, Karl Perazzo and many more spring to mind. Tony had played originally and at the age of fourteen with Chepito’s All-Stars band around the Bay Area. He had also gigged with Pablo Tellez and a version of Malo that existed called Uno Malo during the time that Arcelio Garcia had relocated to New York City. It was appropriate that he would sit in the conga drum seat for years with Malo, as his wildly explosive conguero style was both visually thrilling to behold, as much as it was musically developed and exciting to listen to.

The recording Bueno was put together with its central concept as a form of musical ministry to Believers and non-believers alike. The band did various shows in California at churches and rallies across the Bay Area and the wider California region to promote the message of the recording. The recording holds a special significance for myself as even before listening to it, I had listened to both Gabe and Tony’s testimonies of their coming to faith in Jesus Christ. This happened one great night as we were up on the 24^th floor of the swanky looking Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco and we all shared our different stories at a gig with Congas Y Guitarras that the guys were playing.

It was after the above-mentioned 1999 Malo gig in Ventura that I had a very significant spiritual awakening. It was later that night after the gig and back in my hotel room. In the room’s quiet, I thumbed through a Gideon’s Bible (that are usually left in a drawer or somewhere in hotel rooms and are always free and given out all over the world). An event both gently enlightening and life changing again was about to occur. I suddenly read a piece of the New Testament and I did not know it then, but the Holy Spirit “quickened” this relevant (I wish I could remember the actual part of the Gospel that it was?) piece of Scripture and it really “sprang out” at me, thus giving me a very intense and illuminating feeling that maybe, just maybe, this Gospel of Jesus Christ was not all just a load of garbage, as I had vehemently thought. I had grown up in an Irish Roman Catholic environment but had totally rejected the religion at around fifteen years old. I had originally a good feeling about Jesus as a child but the sheer religiosity and hellfire and damnation approach of the Catholic Church turned me off big time. At the age of fifteen, I threw out the baby (Jesus) with the bathwater and turned my back on God and salvation.

Several years on from rejecting the faith, I had prayed to Jesus on the 2^nd October 1985 in desperation and had been totally and miraculously delivered from a debilitating drug and alcohol habit. Over a year later I was able to quit smoking cigarettes also. But it took me a good thirteen years in 12 Step recovery to finally realise what had happened to me and also what the effects of that fraught prayer in 1985 had been. Whilst contemplating writing what was to become the Voices Of Latin Rock book, these small but significant events happened in a sequence. Stitching my life into a more discernible series of Christ-based spiritual events, that has made a lot more sense in hindsight.

Bueno was released a year later in 2000 and co-incided with my own early and developing belief in the supernatural power and grace of Jesus Christ. There are about three totally standout tracks on the CD for me and I will attempt to describe these in words. One remark made about the CD at the time by a friend was that people should not do “secular” based songs as Christian songs but I remember disagreeing entirely. I did not believe it mattered how one praised or glorified Christ, as long as the motives were from a pure place and a prayerful heart. The song they had a problem with was “Jesu Christo Mi Lindo” which was set to the tune and around the lyrics of Malo’s one and only Top 20 Billboard hit, Suavecito. I think that they felt there was a deliberate attempt here at “cashing in” or something but I did not see that at all. I think it was a clever idea to use a very well known Latino anthem to represent different lyrics and praise for Christ with the well-known melody.

The CD opens with a musical declaration of Psalm 150 which features stirring and strident guitar solo playing by Manzo over a bed of soothing organ courtesy of veterano Hammond and keys player Hermann Eberitzsch. Overlaid is an intoned version of the Psalm in both the Spanish language by Rosa Martinez and followed by a version in English by Amelia Cacciari.

Praise the Lord

Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power: praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet; praise him with the harp and lyre,

Praise him with timbrel and dancing, 
praise him with the

     P  Praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.

          Track 2 follows with a swinging Latin riff to herald the opening cut King Of Kings, a rousing and grooving rhythm with which to open the album. It features a loping Latin ritmo with twin harmony guitars by Gabriel. Following a twinkling piano solo by Rick Treat with Herman’s Hammond B3 following the action all the way thru. This gives way to a rousing guitar solo by Manzo in which he takes his time to build the solo carefully and gets to some clean, crisp, fervent Latino styled figures on the fret board. Over the refrain “Praise The Lord “, Menjivar gets down to serious conga soloing and the song ends with a musical coda over which Reverend Ed Stuart intones that “the justshall live by faith”, over a rumba guaguanco rhythm. The already mentioned Jesu Christo Mi Lindo follows and re-works the songSuavecito as already discussed. With creamy horns featuring some of the Bay area’s finest; including Tom Poole, who has played with everyone from Etta James (RIP) Boz Scaggs and of course Malo. The song also has Steve Rocha on trombone who was yet another alumni of the Malo school.

 Fire follows with excellently produced vocals and great backing built harmonies. Fire is a gentler tune, again featuring heavily layered vocals after a phased guitar opening. Paul Benavidez supplies an ethereal and higher register vocal alongside singer Octaviano Cueto. This song describes the fire building inside a Believer as they feel and encounter The Holy Spirit as it infuses them with His warmth and love. In more total terms the Spirit infuses people with the enduring Grace of God. Paul Benavidez, who was then a current Malo singer with a great high register vocal style, takes the main vocal. Manzo in a rousing vocal coda reminds us that, “For my grace you were saved and it is a gift of God”.

Some down-home funk follows with Don’t Take This Feeling Away From Me and cooks along in a mid-tempo groove with Bobby Gaviola slipping some greasy slippery hi-hats and funky drums into the sound picture. Gabe Manzo takes the lead with a nice growling vocal, supplemented by another cooking piano solo by Rick Treat. This is aided and abetted by a strident horn section, echoing in some respects, a Tower Of Power style groove. The songs deals lyrically with the Second Coming of Jesus and asks Him to not take the state of grace away from a Believer’s heart and soul.

Alabare follows and is a cool, conga led percussion llego style jam, over which Tony Menjivar drops some tasty conga fills and drops into the assembled mix.

Jesus You Came To Me is simply priceless and is a Gabe Manzo led vocal piece with excellent harmonies. All thru this recording I can remember, on first hearing, enjoying how richly layered and well produced the vocals were throughout. Consistently balanced and with fine harmony layering. The lyrics speak for themselves, “Jesus you came to me when I was down, flat on the ground. No one understood my pain. I want to share these words, to share the things He has done for us,” Again beautiful massed vocals feature with the top vocal line from Gabe Manzo This tune also features a plaintive and swirling violin solo refrain from Christopher Kranyak. The song builds up to a rousing coda with the repeated “Oh Lord! I love you so,” driving the band’s sound home with a deep sense of conviction. With added and superb Latin rock guitar soloing from Gabe. A choral ending, just featuring vocals  end this sublime song.

The Lord Is With Me is a stirring and strengthening song which reinforces the singer’s and listeners belief in Christ and reminds that this is a renewable source, which needs a daily inflowing and replenishing. The song starts with the Psalm which exhorts us, “Lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways, acknowledge Him. He will direct your paths. Trust in Him, keep your eyes on Him.”  It is a simply gorgeous song with just the right tension in the rhythm section. Beautiful nylon strung guitarra flourishes ennoble the song, which has a Spanish bullring style feel. Could this be Mr Gonzalez?? Excellent trompeta stabs by Tom Poole and flurries excite the soundscape further. The songs starts to build with a sweet vocal chorus, “Oh Lord, I trust in you, I will do my best for you,” till its abrupt end with a guitar repeat echo.

 Psalm 150 returns and this time is presented as a deeply spiritual, almost harrowing piece of solo guitar by Gabriel Manzo. One imagines Golgotha perhaps, at the beginning of the piece. This is almost like a Christian Samba Pa Ti but evoking a much deeper spiritual reality. Manzo’s guitar plunges and swoops thru the soundscape over a bed of Hammond B3 by Hermann Eberitzsch as before. The guitar is high in the mix and gets down to some bluesy wailing intermixed in the on-going solo. The guitar swirls and peaks thru some inspired Latino guitar playing by Gabriel and stands alongside Jorge Santana’s No Matter on Malo Ascension, Carlos’s Samba Pa Ti onAbraxas and Neal Schon and Carlos on Song Of The Wind on Caravanserai as examples of inspired guitar playing. It is simply and starkly beautiful.

Introducing some doo-wop into the CD is He’s Coming Home, and is a reminder of early Hispanic vocal groups standing on the street corners of the Mission District. The main vocal is ably led by Octaviano Cueto and features the recording’s trademark luxurious and creamy backing vocals.

A personal message from Tony Menjivar introduces Pastor Sonny Lara of San Jose, who tells us of how he appreciates his children, not being out on the streets and gang banging and safe at home in bed at night. It is a very appropriate and timely message after the shooting of the school kids in Connecticut that occurred yesterday.

Like Pastor Sonny says at the outro,“ Try God, and you if don’t want Him, you can have your misery and hurt and pain refunded with interest by the devil and then some. It is not a religion, it’s a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, then I ask you to pray this simple prayer. Lord: I pray this in Jesus’ Holy Name. Love brings in strong will and that what God brings to the house. I can still talk to God, in the middle of the ocean. This is the BEST decision I ever made and there is away out,. Whatever you are going thru, God can turn everything around. I want to introduce to the Master who can make these changes for you. I lift up my Spirit, souls and body, I pray this in Jesus’ Holy Name. And now your name is written in the Book Of Life.”

 The album finishes and fades out with some haunting Mexican music as played by a small combo singing “Alleluia.” The album is dedicated to Tony Menjivar’s father Alberto and also to Bertha Menjivar who passed over before the making of the record. It is very good news to hear that this excellent piece of work is due a renewed lease of life, a second coming if I may? I will endeavour to update any further details of its re-release on here as soon as possible.

Recommended viewing/listening.

Malo drop some Techno Rumba on their 25^th year tour, showing Gabriel Manzo on guitar on Tony Menjivar on congas. Plus some added killer timbales from Roberto Quintana.

Malo CD’s still available thru Amazon.com

Malo: En Vivo Live CD

Malo: Latin Legends Live CD

Best Of Malo CD

Celebracion: Malo 4 x CD Box set

Malo: Senorita CD

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Luis Gasca: For Those Who Chant:

The Mission District’s Bitches Brew.

Recorded Columbia Studios: 17 & 18^th August 1971

Finding Latino Rock records in the early 1970’s

As a young kid about 14 years old, I discovered the original Santana band. When the 3^rd album was released in October 1971, I did not think anything of walking to Beggars Banquet, a hip record store (then) situated in Ealing Broadway. Ealing was a suburb of West London; it was a good 4 or 5 miles walk from my house in Hanwell, which was also located in West London. I bought Santana 3 a few days before the UK release, the US releases seemed much better; they had much thicker card which was used on the album covers with sleeve foldouts and heavier vinyl on the US Columbia label. (Our CBS releases in the UK seemed thinner in the actual vinyl on the records and thinner in album packaging) and I just couldn’t wait the extra week to hear it. It was a very mind blowing recording, a towering selection of underground cuts that was a Number One Billboard seller. Since then I have had the pleasure of writing the sleeve notes to the Santana 3^rd album CD reissue released as a deluxe two x CD set in 2005.

[Show as slideshow]

This was thanks to the auspices of original keyboardist and lead vocalist Gregg Rolie.

Shortly after buying Santana 3, I walked up again to Beggars Banquet and Steve Webbon who worked there (and who had been an art student at Ealing School Of Art, where I also had been studying art and design) showed me another beautifully designed album, with a white cover and a very nice artwork of a Negress/goddess with a rose floating over her Afro’d head. I was immediately interested in the sleeve visually and then Steve dropped the bombshell, “All the original Santana band are on this recording”.

Actually David Brown, Santana’s bassist was missing but all the others were there, plus Lenny White, Stanley Clark and a battery (literally) of percussionists, eleven in all.

I was intrigued by the music as Steve put the vinyl on over the shop’s speakers, it was Miles-like but had strong Latin rhythms and I had become aware of Luis Gasca’s hot trumpet flourishes from Para Los Rumberos on the preceding Santana 3^rd album. I believe that I heard the Luis release on around December 1971 or early 1972 on Blue Thumb Records. The recording has always stayed with me as a really deep and important piece of music, edited from long jams that were recorded at the Columbia Studios in Folsom Street, San Francisco on the 17^th and 18^th August 1971.

During writing the book Voices of Latin Rock, it was not possible to contact Luis but since then, I have had the pleasure to correspond with him and he has shed much light on this epochal recording made in those heady days when Santana was ruling the airwaves and the album charts worldwide.

I am also indebted to Abel Zarate for further detailed interview information, Jeffry Trager for added spice as he worked at Blue Thumb and also frequented Andres Club on Broadway, where “hellacious jams” occurred according to Greg Errico.

I would like to thank also Victor Aleman for some rare photos of Luis and Joe Henderson and Bernie Arriaga (co-owner of Andres Club) from back in the day.

Victor also supplied a subsequent telephone interview from Los Angeles and other extraordinary photos from back in those heady days.

Thanks also to Mark Levine, renowned keyboardist (one of four keyboard players at and on the sessions) who although not entirely sure of certain details, shed further light on these sessions.

I tried to contact Carmelo Garcia, who is not dead as I was led to believe, but living somewhere in L.A. or maybe New York City.

Michael Carabello supplied me with a cassette when I first met him in 1991 in Fairfax, California from his personal reel – to – reel tapes from these Columbia Studio sessions. I thank him retrospectively for that, as it is great to hear the initial un-dubbed sessions with false starts and no tribal vocals plus the extra pieces of unreleased further jamming in the studio.

I would like to thank Michael Shrieve for casting an eye over the interview and adding his reminiscences and comments. Thank you all gentlemen!

STEREO VINYL LP!

Luis Gasca: Luis Gasca! 1971 Blue Thumb Release!

Personnel includes:

Luis Gasca (Trumpet & Flugelhorn);

Joe Henderson (Tenor Saxophone);

Carlos Santana, Neal Schon,

Abel Zarate (Guitars);

George Cables, Gregg Rolie, Mark Levine

(Piano, Electric Piano);

Richard Kermode (Organ);

Lenny White, Michael Shrieve (Drums);

Stanley Clark (Bass);

Victor Pantoja, Mike Carabello (Congas);

Carmelo Garcia, Coke Escovedo (Timbales);

Rico Reyes, Snooky Flowers (Percussion).

Jose “Chepito” Areas; Vibes

Joan Macgregor, Garnett Mimms; Percussions.

TRACKS:

A1. Street Dude (11:40);

A2. La Raza (8:03);

B1. Spanish Gypsy (15:07);

B2. Little Mama (5:28).

Artwork By [Painting Of Front And Back Cover] – Phillip Lindsay Mason

Engineer [Recording] – Glen Kolotkin, Mike Larner

Mixed By – Ken Hopkins, Luis Gasca, Stan Marcum

Photography – Victor Aleman

Producer [For David Rubinson & Friends, Inc., San Francisco] – Luis Gasca.

Supervised By [Production] – Stan Marcum

Recorded at Columbia Recording Studios, San Francisco August 17 & 18, 1971

Mixed at Wally Heider Recording, San Francisco

Dedicated to Gonzales Mares Garza “with little birds and flowers”, 1902 – December 25, 1971

For Those Who Chant Interviews —

 Luis Gasca was a scenester and musician-about-town in 1971 in San Francisco. He jumped the Santana train through the auspices of percussionista Coke Escovedo, played horn and was very influential as the horn section with Roy Murray (see earlier interview with Roy on this site) on the debut Malo disc. He also recorded For Those Who Chant, which is the main thrust of this piece.

Luis remembered his introduction to this exhilarating, fomenting situation, “I had met the Santana band while I was part of the Kosmic Blues Band with Janis Joplin at Woodstock, they were unknown at that time and on they’re way to becoming very, very famous. Janis was very popular at that time and being a Latino along with Carlos, Chepito, Mike Carabello and Fito Parra (the drummer for Canned Heat) we sort of bonded you might say several years before the For Those Who Chant recording.

I had played on the 3rd (Santana 3) and 4th (Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles Live) Santana albums and became good friends with Stan Marcum, whom I considered very smart and he had some very good and different ideas for a person that had little experience in the band and recording business, also another quality I saw in him, which is also very rare in the record business, was that he was not greedy. He was very fair and not an egomaniac like people I had worked with, like Albert Grossman (manager of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin) also Joe Dorn (who ran the affairs of Roberta Flack and Freddie Hubbard) and a wannabe musician, “you will never work in this town again type of dick head”, namely David Rubinson.

Because of Stan’s fairness, I, Victor Pantoja, Hadley Caliman, all received royalties from the Santana and Buddy Miles album. Stan never received the credit he deserved and unfortunately lost his position during the original Santana band disagreements and Bill Graham’s power trips.

I will forever be indebted to and miss Stan and like many of us at that time he had “his demons”.

Does anyone know what happened to Stan?

 (Stan Marcum never overcame his alcohol and drug demons and died in 2010 I believe, according to what Herbie Herbert told me. There was an obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle, this information was also relayed to me by Herbie – Jim note).

I asked Luis about the “Chant” recording and how it came about?

Stan lent me $7.000 to get started and he got the studio time the engineers, etc, and helped get the Santana guys to be part of the musical trip.  Mike Carabello and Michael Shrieve and also Carlos at one time or another, helped me when I managed Andres Club in North Beach along with Bernie Arriaga.

(See Victor Aleman’s photo of Gasca and Arriaga with Eddie Palmeiri – Jim note).

While working with Mongo Santamaria in 1967 we recorded an album with David Rubinson before he became the San Francisco based “infant terrible” ha, ha!!
After the success of the first Malo record, I took my recorded tape to David and with the bargaining power of the Santana name he got me a contract with Blue Thumb Records. I did not have any specific ideas in mind, except to get the musicians in the studio with no preconceived musical ideas.

I was always been influenced by Miles Davis and had been listening to the Bitches Brew and Miles In The Sky albums, where he broke away from chord changes, to playing musical statements and motifs, more so than melodies going in and out and different time feels. So I gave it my best shot and all things considered I think it stands the test of time like my other albums, especially with all the things going on around me at that time, which also included my own demons.

Victor Aleman was originally a member and director/founder of The Outlaw Blues Band, which lasted for seven years in Los Angeles and he then became involved in photographing the nascent Latin and Jazz scene in San Francisco in 1970’s.

“At the end of The Outlaw Blues Band contract with ABC Bluesway Records where we recorded two albums with Bob Thiele as a producer (producer of John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong and many other great musicians), I became involved in photography and visual arts.

One day I went to see Larry Young, the great jazz organist playing at Griffith Park at a series of free concerts they held in the Los Angeles area. After Larry Young’s set Luis Gasca came to play next; Luis had Carmelo Garcia on timbales, Hadley Caliman on tenor sax, Lenny White on drums, George Cables on piano, Victor Pantoja on congas and other musicians that I do not recall. At that time I didn’t know who Luis Gasca was.

Luis was also playing a gig at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach where I went and show him the images that I have taken at the Griffin Park concert. He told me he really liked my photography and if I would be interested in going to San Francisco to meet a new band called Malo. They need photographs for a new album cover they were just finishing.

I travelled to the bay area and I started photographing Malo at rehearsals at The Heliport in Sausalito and the many other places they played at that time.

For me, Abel Zarate at that time was one of the best guitarists in that scene. The band had all kinds of problems, with young egos etc, I thought when that initial lineup dissolved they really lost something very special. Of course they went on to get master conguero Francisco Aguabella and Hadley Caliman on the second recording.”

(Jim note; Victor Aleman was responsible for the infrared back cover and dramatic photos of Malo inside the fold out on their debut album release. He also did the photography for three albums released by Luis Gasca and was one of the official photographers at the Keystone Korner club in North Beach where he documented the greatest jazz musicians including Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Stan Getz, Yusef Lateef, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and many others.)

Luis Gasca was then living with Richard Kermode in the North Beach area of San Francisco. Gasca introduced Aleman to Andres Club on Broadway, in North Beach, San Francisco. Andres was being run for its fairly short but dramatic lifespan, by a local hipster called Bernie Arriaga.

Victor remembers it as, a “small little club in North Beach, the very hip and historical area in San Francisco. It was very close to the bay, so there was a lot of tourists, artists and the club became a magnet for Latin jazz at that time, because Luis made it onto “the” hip scene of the city.

Luis had the gift of attracting a lot of other musicians to any club he was playing at. Luis made it happen. Carlos Santana used to come there when he was in his learning transition about jazz. I think Luis and the many musicians that were playing there at that time were pretty instrumental in expanding Carlos’ musical horizons. You never knew who was going to show up on any given night. Luis was running the house band there. The Santana musicians showed up a lot, the Escovedo brothers, Armando Peraza, Victor Pantoja, Francisco Aguabella, George Cables, Lenny White, Sly and the Family Stone, Rick Stevens, Mongo Santamaria and many other musicians that I really do not remember. But it was the place to be any day of the week in San Francisco, because it was full of surprises, musically.”

For Luis Gasca’s seminal “Chant” recording, a mixture of these jazz musicos and the original Santana band entered the Columbia Studios that August in 1971…

I asked Luis about the interplay between the Santana group and the jazz players?

“I’ve already mentioned that Stan Marcum helped me with the Santana band and I personally asked the guys.
At that particular time all the Santana band including Carlos had received instant fame and fortune and with the power struggle going on within the band, they had plenty of time to hang out.

Having Victor Pantoja, Francisco Aguabella, Carmelo Garcia, Richard Kermode, Hadley Caliman in my band at any given time, allowed them to hang out and sit in and also to become personal friends.

Joe Henderson was appearing at a great jazz club managed by Delano Dean Delano (Dean was the owner of the jazz club both/and. I played there one night and Dizzy Gillespie and Roland Kirk sat in with me, it was a famous great club!)

He (Joe Henderson) asked me if I needed any more musicians when I asked him to do the record date; he took the whole band along which also included, George Cables, and an unknown bass player at that time Stanley Clark and Lenny White, the drummer who had recorded on Bitches Brew with Miles Davis – by the way the flute player on “Chant” is Hadley Caliman”.

Mark Levine one of the four keyboardists on the session, was not in agreement with all of Luis’ musical decisions

I worked with Joe Henderson a lot over a 15-20 year period, but we were not close friends. I remember getting paid for the Chant session. There was so much coke around then that I forget a lot. I was in Luis’ band but it was not a working band, but it usually consisted of Joe Henderson, various bass players, Carmelo, various congueros, and myself.

Yes, I was also part of Pete and Sheila’s band at The Reunion, but I don’t remember the club Andres.

I felt there were too many percussionists on the record and also two many keys players.

George Cables and me were on piano, we got in each other’s way but I respect and admire George a lot though.

I asked Luis about the extraordinary and almost telepathic guitar playing by Neal Schon and Abel Zarate on “Little Mama” and the point at record track timing; 4 minutes and 34 seconds When they both “hit” a kind of classical guitar fugue for a hot minute???

I don’t musically remember that part Neal and Abel played, though, I believe it was spontaneous in a spontaneous musical setting. Where one is recording, there are some excellent parts that you keep and chaos that you discard, because you only have a certain amount of time on the record. Miles did the same thing and those are the consequences of recording “free” with no preconceived ideas!

I also asked Abel Zarate the same question?

Abel you plugged in for Little Mama with Neal Schon,

there is a fabulous part at (timed from Facebook

post at 4 minutes 34 seconds) when you and Neal hit a together guitar part, an almost ‘classical part’ was that an accident??

Nothing was planned Jim, everything was flowing and very spontaneous. I’m sure that I was ‘overplaying’ a bit, but Neal and I just intertwined at that point in the jam.

You could call it a magnificent accident if you like LOL… I just listened to it … that’s me coming in right at 4:34 after Neal; I guess we had BIG ears that day huh!

Luis had me stop after a while, my feeling is that he wanted the more experienced jazz players to take it somewhere else; I wouldn’t call it chaotic, it was just unstructured improvisation and I guess that’s what Luis wanted.

BTW Jim, I listened to both Little Mama and Street Dude in their entirety, and Carlos does NOT appear on either tune; he must have played on the other two tracks.

Jim, that’s also me and Neal on Street Dude; I just listened to it, I didn’t realize until now, that I am on TWO cuts from this LP … Street Dude and Little Mama - that is too much!!!

I’m listening to Spanish Gypsy right now and that IS Carlos on that one!

We went to The Automatt (surely Columbia recording studio?) during the ‘Luis’ sessions and that’s how I got to play. He invited Pablo and I to sit in, so I plugged in my guitar and started playing … I distinctly remember Lenny White, Coke, and Stanley Clarke; it was surreal.

Also, I’m going to assume that Luis’ record was done BEFORE we did the Malo LP. To my best memory, I believe the Malo LP was recorded in late August and September … you might want to check with Rich Spremich and others on this?

Abel Zarate also remembered other players at the sessions?

I believe Luis had invited us to the studio while we were rehearsing at the Heliport in Sausalito … hence, that is why we had our instruments with us.

I remember we were invited to the Columbia Studio on Folsom Street, across from where SIR studios used to be. Jorge, Pablo, and I were in awe of the musicians present, they were doing ‘unstructured free-form jams’ it seemed.

Luis turned to me and Pablo Tellez and asked if we wanted to play, so I nodded yes, and plugged in across from Neal Schon.

I doodled around for a bit, and then found an opening and started them off on a cha-cha vamp … not sure how long I played and when they started getting really ‘out’, Luis had me stop playing! I used to have a copy of that record on CD, but can’t find it now.

We met Carmelo Garcia via Luis, we hung out at Basin St West a few times on Broadway Street, and if I remember correctly, Carmelo also played timbales at Andre’s and at Cesar’s Latin Palace.

I seem to recall that he either sat in, or played on a couple of gigs that I did with Kermode. Carmelo didn’t speak English very well, but he was always smiling and joking around; I believe Richard Spremich would have more to say about Carmelo than I do.

Thanks Jim, as many years have passed from this project, I do not want to ‘ruffle’ any feathers. But I was always curious as to why I ended up on the final mix unaccredited.

(Abel see Luis’s comment further on- Jim note)

Luis Gasca also remembered the framework around the recording sessions.

Besides finding a financial sponsor (Stan Marcum), getting the band which included rooms, advances, “goodies”, women and countless other things, I had “a lot on my plate” and then I had to play the trumpet which is very demanding.

Please also tell Abel Zarate that I did not mean to leave him out on the album credits; it was an oversight on my part. I also left out other people who had helped me. I was pretty burned out mentally and physically, so tell every one hi for me… (Hi from Luis everyone!!)

For Abel Zarate; the sessions were a new learning curve and a chance to play with hotshot youngster Neal Schon…??

Well, it was ‘listen’ and compliment … everything was flowing free-form, but I was right across from Neal (perhaps I was overplaying a bit. You know it was a totally new experience for me at that time … but Luis was having us experiment with the ‘cosmos’ at MALO rehearsals, so I was sort of ready for it … we were all learning the use of space etc. etc. … and how to ‘listen’ … although I hadn’t yet mastered that LOL!

The recording session that I was at was done ‘live’ … everyone in the room separated only by baffles … I wasn’t privy, as to who was overseeing the project.

All I know is that we were invited, and we showed up … so there are THREE scenarios that could explain how I ended up on that record.

Neal was quite aloof, as he WAS the hot guitarist then for sure (I didn’t know at the time that he had already played with Derek and the Dominoes) so I gave him his space, and didn’t say too much to him. It was a blast playing in the same room with him, as I had heard so much about him.

I was only at ONE session, and I had no idea I’d be playing that day … hence, I was VERY surprised when I heard my parts on the record … but I was very busy doing other projects.

After I left Malo and wasn’t sure what I could do about it, or whether or not it was worth pursuing. I was young and really didn’t care, or thought it would matter much.

Abel Zarate also had to leave the Malo band later after this Gasca recording, due to encroaching health reasons

Health problems were the reason they fired me from Malo!

I missed an entire weeks’ engagement at the Whiskey A Go-Go in Los Angeles because of it, the management used that as grounds to let me go; it is what it is, and it was what it was:-)

Jeffry Trager was working at Blue Thumb Records with Tommy LiPuma and Bob Krasnow and remembered Luis’ personality?

Luis was one great trumpet player, who came along right in the middle of the Latin Rock Explosion. One of the craziest and wackiest guys you would ever want to meet. Always hustling for something.

Personally, I loved the guy. He was ALWAYS great to me. He was a mixture of Puck and Peter Pan. Great smile, always getting into trouble.

He was here, there, everywhere, and had friends, and he had enemies. He was full steam ahead for just about anything, especially if it had 2 legs. “Hey Mama” was his signature line.

He disappeared for a while and I think he faked his own death.

I was in Cancun Mexico one night and I am shitfaced and I hear this guy playing the horn on the stage with some band, and it was Luis!

I immediately screamed “Mama” and he stopped dead in the middle of his solo, and looked out, because he knew someone from The City was in the audience. He just loved that.

He was at the time, taking people out on fishing trips on a boat he had. What a place to find Luis. It was fucking great to hear that familiar sound, just great! A REAL CHARACTER of the inth degree!!

Abel Zarate also recalled the Santana band’s disarray at that time.…….

I remember that Richard Spremich, Jorge, Pablo and I ran into Carlos at Luis’ gig at Basin Street West, and he had left the band out on the road … but I can’t say for sure if this is why he was not present at the session, nor can I speak to what his relationship was with Mike Carabello at the time…

Although it could very well be, that things were very difficult.

Carlos made it clear that things were less than kosher between he and the band at Basin Street … and he sat in with Luis that night on the number ‘Linda Chicana’.

I am paraphrasing from well known facts that Michael and Carlos did not get along for quite awhile … but I witnessed the two of them hug and make up when Carabello and I went to visit Carlos, right before I joined Willie Bobo, so I was under the assumption that that is the reason Carlos was NOT there on the day, I sat in at the Columbia Studios session.

As regarding sets with Luis, I don’t really remember all that much, but we were doing songs like ‘Morning’ by Claire Fischer, if I remember correctly, and some Latin descarga style stuff … very loose … I think I only did a couple of live gigs with Luis, and the others were with Kermode much later. I am not sure if I also played at Cesar’s Latin Palace with Luis.

Luis had made some great connections in the San Franciscan music scene…one in particular…

With “all things considered” I had enough recorded material to put an album together, so that in itself felt really good.

I first heard Joe Henderson on two “jazz hits” of that time (the 1960`s) Song For My Father with Horace Silver and The Side Winder with Lee Morgan who was shot by his wife getting off the bandstand at a jazz club in New York – Slugs my friend from Houston Texas and Billy Roy Harper was the tenor player in the band.

I knew Lee from the Apollo Theater in New York, when I worked there with Mongo Santamaria. Like all true artists, Joe had an immediate recognizable sound, which was something hard to do under the shadows and influence during the same time of the great and established tenor giants – John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz and Sonny Rollins were still alive (Sonny Rollins is still alive and playing).

He recorded and worked with everyone but never achieved the popularity of other sax players (say players like Gato Barbieri, Stanley Turrentine, Charles Lloyd, etc.), which unfortunately happens too often in the record business, when they don’t really support and get behind the artist.

Joe and I were good friends, and Joe went to the Corpus Christi Jazz Festival, which also included pianista Mark Levine and timbalero Carmelo Garcia, which was also a series of concerts that I promoted in the San Francisco area.

Joe had some type of “debt” so I “loaned” him some money, which I was at that time in a position and more than glad to do it!

Yes, we were good friends. I also indirectly helped him get his house in Potrero Hill on Las Palmas Street in San Francisco in the 1970’s.

The Little Giant album was the first time Joe and I worked together and I was musically honored when I called him to do the date and he said he would be there!

When he walked into the studio the producer (a wannabe) asked me why I had called Joe Henderson, when he could have got others! I naturally ignored Joel Dorn.

I never liked the name of the album ‘Little Giant’ which was embarrassing for me and I hated the album cover artwork –pineapples and pop art combined-.

There was already a real “little giant” a great tenor player called Johnny Griffin – so much for the great producer, thank you Joel Dorn: what a joke!!

After the “Chant” album, he (Joe Henderson) asked me to get the material, the music and the band for an album he was behind on for Fantasy Records and he wasn’t ready.

So, with the help of Mark Levine and Joe Gallardo, we recorded “Canyon Lady” with Orrin Keepnews an excellent producer for Fantasy Records.

But ironically about a year later, Joe Henderson, Cal Tjader and I were “dropped” from Fantasy Records. I was honored to be cancelled in such outstanding company, ha, ha, ha!

Time passed and at last at the age of 50 plus, Joe Henderson finally got all the recognition, like Grammy Magazine Covers, etc.

I saw him on a TV show at the White House with Bill Clinton, who ironically said that it was easier for him to become President than it was to ever play as good as John Coltrane or Stan Getz.

The last time I saw Joe before he died I asked him: “how it felt finally getting all this success”? He joked with me and told me it, “felt good to check out of a hotel with dignity ha, ha, and pay the bill with no trouble.”

I think about Joe often and forever I am honor and humbled to truly say I was a friend of his and he was a friend of mine.

I understood his demons. He was a very private person, “the phantom” as Freddy Hubbard once joked.

It almost seems to me that John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon and Stan Getz, had to pass away before Joe finally got his short lived recognition.

He certainly could easily fill those empty slots of the great tenor player of this musically complicated world.

I think about Joe often and will forever miss him!!

P.S. the name of Delanor Deans jazz club was the Both/And jazz club. A great place in the Fillmore district. The Both/And Jazz Club (350 Divisadero Street; San Francisco) were one of these.

Open from 1965 to 1972, the tiny space quickly became one of the last major jazz clubs in the area.

The fantastic saxophonist John Handy was part of one of the first bands to play the Both/And.

Handy says that he was responsible for putting the club on the map and “taking it from sandwiches to a liquor license” when Chronicle music reviewer Ralph Gleason came down to one of Handy’s shows and wrote about the club Readers are recommended to check out John Handy’s 1976 R&B cut called Hard Work, (Assembled on a 2-for-1 CD release on Verve, this January 2012 called Hard Work/Carnival, featuring a great band and Handy’s superb soloing).

Joe Louis Walker also has fond memories of the Both/And. He remembers seeing Miles Davis and Wes Montgomery there.

“It was a cool atmosphere at the Both/And, the premier jazz club for a while. It had a stage to the right and an upstairs area. John McLaughlin played there one night out of a Marshall amp. No one could believe it. Jazz chicks were going crazy. It was an excellent show.

Across the street was Pal’s Rendezvous (on 298 Divisadero Street; San Francisco), another bar that featured great music.

I asked Luis what had happened to the crazy, extroverted timbalero Carmelo Garcia???

Carmelo García is alive and well in Los Angeles.

(I believe according to Mark Levine he has now relocated to New York City- Jim note)

It was a very hard “struggle for him” especially being raised in Santo Domingo.

But he made it back and he’s one of the best and “natural” percussionists in the world. There was lots of “respect and cooperation”.

Between all concerned, which made it less intense, it was experimental and most of us were on cloud nine.

On the album credits; who was Gonzales Mares Garza “with little birds and flowers”?

Garza is my grandmother. She was a wonderful Indian woman who always worked in her rose garden with little birds and flowers.

I had to kneel so she could “bless me” in La Bendición before I went “ on the road” at a very young age.

Who was the cover artist Philip Lindsay Mason?

After my Joel Dorn album covers my girlfriend Patricia Henner introduced me to Philip, yes he was an Afro-American artist, he was one of the best.

I saw it on Patricia, my aunt’s wall, who was going out with Philip at the time and I knew immediately that was the cover for the music. I had in mind a really nice cover and the front I liked but not the back art they used? (also by Philip Lindsay Mason- Jim note)

Luis Gasca today……………..??

I now live a very peaceful life now, I had to pay tenfold for so many mistakes with drugs, liquor and I was much later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was not a good combo, but “all things considered”, there is not many musicians that have crisscrossed genres, such as Mongo, Count Basie, Janis Joplin, Dr John, The Grateful Dead, etc.. and especially coming from such a humble environment (the Mexican ward in Houston, Texas).

I touched “the stars” even if it was for a past moment in time.

A closer look at the music on the original recording and some other music sessions recorded in those two days that did not make the sessions………….

This record is only available on old vinyl copies and is still buyable on Ebay etc and also as an expensive Japanese import CD.  

I have enclosed YouTube clips of reasonable quality for you to hear this marvellous music. Please get this recording if you are able, it is well worth it.

TRACKS:

A1. Street Dude (11:40);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKbn4P9NcXg&feature=related

 This starts immediately after the Little Mama guitar jams on the undubbed sessions between Abel Zarate and Neal Schon. Here a gorgeous Latin guitar riff opens this piece played by Abel Zarate. Neal Schon also appears on this cut according to Abel and they work magic together. A different sound picture allows you to hear the deft guitar playing by Zarate. The solo by Joe Henderson on tenor is the same as on the finished recording. Shrieve and White on respective drum kits lope in a relaxed and intense fashion. There is an out-there vibe to this largely unstructured music that sounds both spontaneous and deeply thought about, at the same time. Chepito on vibes is heard clearly here along with the organ of Richard Kermode. The whole thing swings effortlessly and in a deep, almost contemplative groove. All the while the electric pianos point and jab and add colors whilst Chepito enhances the piece with vibraphone textures.

Gasca adds plaintive trumpet until Clarke adds a sonorous time change on bass, after which the whole ensemble switches gear and begins a percussive onslaught, which is still shockingly avant – garde all these forty years later. The timbaleros start to apply tom-tom pressure to proceedings. Please note here the added vocal chants that are on the finished recording are not all present here yet. Excellent guitar abstractions by Neal follow here. Africa is calling as the mood intensifies and the percussionistas get down. Chants begin, these I would imagine courtesy of Carmelo Garcia, Victor Pantoja; but here they are less defined than the finished recording but they are still compelling. The music moves along in a trance like manner similar to Bambele Bambeyo, with hypnotic congas by Pantoja and then the timbales strike up again.

This unedited piece finishes with guitar caresses by both guitar players around free form percussion and bass. Again it is longer than the album cut. On the fade-out it features some magisterial trumpet from Gasca. Electric piano adding free form flourishes, end out the piece.

(Unheard music here)

 And lead into a section of open playing without percussion, this I imagine is both Mark Levine and George Cables.

This leads into a subtle riff led by Stanley Clarke’s bass under the two pianistas. Shrieve and White set up a swing time drum pattern over which the pianists hit some laidback soloing with Clarke adding a ruminating bass solo. Shrieve then heads out into a snare and bass drum propelled solo piece with his trademark crisp snare two stroke rolls. This diminishes in volume until the bass comes back into the picture.

A further section features solo piano from George Cables in a spare setting, with sparse bass from Mr Clarke. At least and more than twenty minutes in length, this opens up with a light funky and jazzy pulse set up by the drummers. The music changes to drums being played in a light and fast style. It goes on further thru moods and time changes in a pure Latino jazz style, just the pianos, bass and the two drummers, bobbing and playing a thick but dexterous sheet of cymbal rhythm.

We then enter deeper abstract territory with wah-wah electric piano playing with snare drums playing thru what sounds like time delay or Echoplex; similar perhaps in feel to the Mwandishi/Sextant era Herbie Hancock. This resolves into a blues shuffle, like a funkier Jack Johnson and the music starts to get on down.  The music spins and wheels thru different moods and changes in the spaces of a few bars.

Never settling, always changing, the bass bubbles and Mike Shrieve plays some drum raps thru an Echoplex or similar device giving the drums a space age filtered feel. (Remember this is pre electronic era drums, back in 1971 and reminds one of Shrieve’s ever-exploratory musical nature)

A funky vibe starts up with Clarke Shrieve and White cooking up a storm, against a distant electric piano.

A2. La Raza (8:03);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0knkHC2ob0

 With a meditative and haunting opening horn theme by Gasca and Joe Henderson, La Raza is another musical jewel from this extraordinary recording session. Bowed bass by Stanley Clarke accompanies a poignant dreamy intro by Luis on trumpet here. The musicians feel their way towards an almost straight ahead funky 4/4 time riff, in which Gasca desultorily plays over the top, the drums start to kick in and push and thrust the piece into a more urgent mood. Joe Henderson appears from nowhere, as if he had just walked in thru the studio door at that moment. His tenor flurries are replied too with a kicking drum section, both jabbing and punctuating the sax player’s bluesy playing. Both drummers ride the tom-toms behind an increasingly agitated solo by Henderson.

It funks ferociously and Henderson drags the music to the point of exploding or imploding, whichever way you are hearing it? Henderson drags it back from the edge of collapse by a funky tenor refrain before hitting the main theme, aided and abetted by Clarke’s deeply bent and pulled bass strings. Thus, the track fades almost too quickly, after an eight-minute piece of the deepest jazz exploration.

B1. Spanish Gypsy (15:07);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fE9uvjVMMk&feature=related

The atmospheric intro of this piece starts with a false start on the un-dubbed reel-to-reel tapes from the Columbia Studio sessions and then it starts up again; these two parts were edited on the final recording and made into a seamless start on the record.

Carabello’s congas are to the fore on this rough mix and the horn intro with Joe Henderson is the same a sultry thematic that heralds the beginning of a firecracker solo by Luis Gasca. Neal Schon’s rhythm guitar can be clearly heard, along with Carlos’s jazzy guitar extrapolations. Luis’s trompeta solo is different here to the one on the finished recording this seems to be a guide solo before he recorded the “real thing”. It is more tentative and not as explosive as the record. Stanley Clarke bass playing buzzes throughout the track. This first section is followed by Carlos playing some echoed and tasty guitar licks playing while around the pianists rippling and vamping. The percussion section starts to pick up energy and dynamism here with Carmelo Garcia injecting some tasty timbale fills. Joe Henderson erupts on tenor saxophone and this is the same solo as on the album recording. Victor Pantoja supplies simple but strong conga flams and drops along with Coke Escovedo and Carmelo’s timbale drops. Both Michael Shrieve and Lenny White start to heat up the piece as the pressure increases in the two-man drum section. Further excellent flurrying guitar from Carlos ensues, adding strong flavor to this extended track. Luis Gasca’s trumpet flurries seem to be pulling and braking the music back and the track breaks into a time change with Carlos playing a refrain over the time change. Congas and timbales all seem to be falling apart, as the track heads to a final fade with Carlos and Neal adding languid guitar fretting. This is a different mix than the finished album so Neal and Carlos are heard in a different sound picture. There is a much longer fade here, with much more fluid guitar from Neal and Carlos not heard on the recording. There is also some tasty drum kit and timbale interaction on the way outwards. Another Henderson solo comes in amongst the percolating and cooking rhythm section, which is bubbling in a very cool fashion. This unedited session is a good eight or nine minutes longer than the album cut. I would estimate an approximate time of 23/24 minutes or more for this excellent musica. Music of a kind, which was never to be heard in this form again.

B2. Little Mama (5:28).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4JcMRoCO3Y&feature=relmfu

This starts in a floating, almost formless way before the music heard on the session called Little Mama intro is heard on the record. Before Neal Schon brings in that light but funky guitar riff that starts some great guitar jamming between him and Abel Zarate. The guitar playing is light, airy but seamlessly intertwining as the riff gathers momentum and pulls to a halt, allowing Neal and Abel to flex their mighty musical muscles here. It’s a mesmeric brew of snarling and caterwauling guitar playing from both men. Both wailing and interwoven plus crisply bluesy and soulful; although the two had never met or played before, An example of the astounding musical telepathy extant in those heady days of the San Franciscan Latin rock scene.

There is an astonishing moment (4 minutes 34 seconds) when Neal and Abel Zarate hit a ”fugue” like moment that is truly astounding to hear. As Abel said earlier in the main interview, it was a pure moment that happened spontaneously in the room. On the finished recording the intro piece was recorded at a different time and edited onto the front of this piece. On the reel-to-reel it introes immediately afterwards with Abel Zarate’s beautiful chiming Latin guitar riff for Street Dude.

In the photo of Eddie Palmieri, Luis Gasca is on the left and on the right is the owner of Andres’ club, Bernie Arriaga in the North Beach area of San Francisco. The other is of Carmelo Garcia playing at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, California.

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• 

Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles 
Live (1-1 -1972)
LIVE CONCERT REVIEW (40 years on……)

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Listening to this original concert held at the Diamond Head Crater in Honolulu at the 1^st January 1972, one realises why a re-record in a studio was necessary. Neal Schon in my Voices Of Latin Rock book described this show as a ”mosh – a stoned, self-indulgent disaster.”
Listening to this on the popular torrent site Sugarmegs, although not of great audio quality, one is both warmed and perturbed by the strange show.
At times it has the feeling of one of Miles Davis’ mid-1970’s subterranean funk pieces, from such albums such as Agharta, Pangaea or Dark Magus. There is a murky, well intentioned but incoherent aspect to the playing. Some of it is tight but it also meanders greatly and at times loses its way fairly dramatically. Stan Marcum and Ron Estrada were still just about managing affairs and Stan appears in some of those current photographs shown here. (Courtesy of Don Wehr!!)
The set appears as follows………………..
(1)       Untitled Jam/Gumbo; This is led by Robert Hogins the organist in Buddy Miles’ current touring band of that time, described by Buddy back then in Ebony Magazine, as the “best band of players he had had up to that point.” There follows, after the initial organ led intro a bass and drum break with Ron Johnson (again from Buddy’s touring band) pumping the bass frenetically and powerfully.
(2)        This segues into Gumbo, known by Santana fans from their early live shows and available on the Santana 3 Deluxe Double CD edition, released a few years back. This features breaks in its funk-based outro from Buddy Miles on Drums, Gregg Errico on drums and Coke Escovedo’s distinctive timbale fills.
(3)        Layla is an instrumental version of Clapton’s memorable piece, in some ways it has more bite and attack than the original. The organ again leads over a Latinesque 4/4 beat and Neal Schon brings in a very melodic and stinging guitar solo to the proceedings. Then he does his customary step onto the distortion/wah pedal and ups the ante with a screaming and well pitched beautifully executed guitar solo. Carlos is providing strong rhythm. There is also a double drum break with Victor Pantoja overlaying a conga solo. He is exhorted to “keep going” and is joined by Coke Escovedo on timbales again. There is a dramatic cut in the recording here before we rejoin the drum break. The bass comes in heavy to the mix and then we hit the Layla theme again before an abrupt ending.
(4)         Little Wing; A nice and slow version of the Hendrix song. There are inaudible vocals from Buddy here but Hogins and Neal Schon are on hand to supply strong thematics to the song’s introduction. There is a loss of audio on this taping and Carlos’ guitar is quite high in the mix. Carlos also plays a little mellow lead at the ending of the song, a really excellent guitar solo and again an abrupt end.
(5)         Heavy Funk Piece; This is a lumbering, heavy funky piece again led by Hogin’s organ vamping, He is very prominent in the sound mix and Ron Johnson again provides some funky and pumping bass, Neal Schon is on hand to provide another blistering guitar solo, in his uniquely aggressive manner. Schon’s sound at this point was incredibly exciting at this young stage of his career. I personally think he and Carlos, never sounded better in terms of their respective guitar sounds. (Peavey amps and Gibson Les Pauls).
(6)         Respect Yourself vamp; an unusual vamp around the Staples Singers well-known song here with nice funky bass by Johnson (My friend Neftali Santiago, who played drums with Mandrill, said Ron Johnson was/is still around, possibly in the Los Angeles area). This has a medium tempo; again there is an inaudible vocal from Buddy with Robert Hogins driving the songs structure along. Neal wails again but unfortunately this mix makes his guitar outing inaudible.
(7)         Intro/Funky Shuffle; which absolutely sounds like it was made up on the spot at the show. It’s a real train wreck with Robert Hogins noodling over the top (literally). BJ blows away on the bass too. Neal drops some desultory blues vamps into the proceedings over a drum battering ram by Errico and Miles.
(8)         Sing A Simple Song; Yes, it’s the Sly Stone funk hit from that period. Mid – paced and funky Carlos and Neal drop some nice funky guitar licks with added horn fills by both Hadley Caliman and Luis Gasca, on sax and trumpet respectively. They stay reasonably faithful to Sly’s original and there is some funky feral guitar by Neal plus another sharp audio break in the recording.
(9)         Back to the concert with some stoned noodling, Neal takes off for some fluid guitar but the audio is not good here, there is also some commotion on the tape, about the actual taping, with someone saying “I’m the drummer’ and “Let’s go!” Very random jamming ensues here (similar in style to Freeform Funkified Filth (the 25-minute jam) released on the second side of the Columbia album. There are conga drums playing in the background also.
(10)     Another jam style piece that is hard to tell whether it is a part of the last sprawling piece with Neal the tempo picks up dramatically and as you would expect from musicians of this calibre, there are moments of telepathy interspersed with not hitting the mark.
(11)     Funk based romp; Neal and Carlos laying down a funky, heavy, rocking riff. There is a drum and timbale break similar to the one between Marbles and Lava on the recorded album. Hogins organ playing is presented over the top of the ensemble.
(12)     Marbles; this is definitely a different version to the recorded album, for one it misses the spliced crowed cheering so prevalent on the record.
There is a different timbale/drum break but Coke Escovedo readily acquits himself with some tasty timbale fills.
Lava; Again this is a different take to the studio recreations in the USA.
OR they have put new overdubs on this one, it is close to the recording though. It has a slamming drum backing with Hogins tripping on the Hammond B3.
(13)     “Time”; This is possibly called “time” with Buddy Miles singing a slowish tempo blues song, the vocals are not too clear. More subtle style guitar her by Neal, clean and fluid in this muddy sounding soundboard or on-stage recording.
(14)     Evil Ways; different version to the album, different organ solo at the intro and further jamming after the first bridge and chorus, again different to the record. It also differs with Gasca and Caliman offering different high register sax/trumpet flourishes and another take on Hadley Caliman’s tenor saxophone solo, on the double time tempo shift at the end. Carlos also weighs in towards the end with some jazz-inflected, piercing licks on guitar.
(15)     Faith Interlude; Some difference to the record but Carlos’ solo is almost note-for-note the same as the record. Could this have been an overdub, it is hard to say? Like the album it is short and sweet, less than two minutes in length.
So, an album which although selling well; was not well liked by its performers. I see it as a more accessible precursor to the later murky Afro-like extrapolations of the mid-70’s Miles Davis bands, with their emphasis on one/two note jamming and long swampy funky interludes; that were as astonishing as they were uncompromising. Even today. I don’t think people have really come to terms sonically with the crazy, coked-up and edgy spaced music presented by Miles i that mid 1970′s period. Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles Live, today sounds like an album that a current jam would try to make but possibly fail? Players like these maybe exist today but the rawness and the edge seems to be missing (apart from bands like The Roots, to name one for example). Culled from the best of Buddy Miles’ band and from 1971 era Santana (Neal, Carlos, Coke E) plus sessioneers like Hadley Caliman and Luis Gasca, plus the added percussion of Mike Carabello and James Mingo Lewis, gave this a firepower sadly lacking during the following jazz-fusion era plus in today’s more sanitised markets. Even Carlos’s band these days has incredible chops and precision but the day for that utter gleaming fire appears to be past. So a botched experiment (check Free Form Funkified Filth, for example) but an exciting one that reveals a moment in time, when musicians had little discipline in terms of personal boundaries and some bad habits but an instinctive fire that pushed them thru into areas musically that session musicians, on the whole could not reach.
Gregg Errico; who had recently left the Sly Stone family, remembers that at the overdub stage back in the USA studios; that his was practically the only “live” track left from the actual first live recording in Haiwaii

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• 

ADRIAN AREAS:

TIMBALERO & MISSION PRODIGY

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 Where and when were you born and when did you start to play the timbales or any other instruments?

 I was born on August 19th, 1973 in San Francisco, California at Saint Luke’s Hospital.I stated to play Timbales at the age of 1yrs old.

 What do you remember about those early days of playing??

 I always enjoyed to play the timbales and drums but it was overwhelming performing in front of thousands of people when you are 3 years old. But in time I got used to it.

How much of an influence was your father Chepito Areas? Tell us what you see Chepito’s playing like??

 I would listen to my fathers records while he was touring with the Santana Band, my father had his studio in the house and I knew how to run the equipment so I’d play the Santana records and play along with my timbales. My father’s timbale style is unique it has so much flavour and is funky, jazzy and very explosive. You know his sound when you hear him on the Santana Records. He influenced me to play tasty solos on the timbales and made me tell a story when I played.

 Tell, us about Chepito’s ALL STAR band in the day what were they like??

 I was only one years old when the Jose Chepito Areas solo album came out but it was always playing in the house on the record player, in the United States and in Nicaragua in our family home in Leon, Nicaragua. I know this record had the all-star musicians from the San Francisco bay area in the salsa, latin rock, jazz and rock and roll scene, it’s a great record.

 How is your playing different to Chepito’s??

 My playing is similar because he is the Father of Latin Rock and everyone has to play his licks and fills……but to have my own flavour and sound. I mix it up with Rumba licks and Brazilian samba licks and straight ahead jazz licks.

 Who are your favourite timbale players or Latin percussionists??

 My dad Jose Chepito Areas, Tito Puente Ibae, Manny Oquendo Ibae, Calixto Oviedo, Orestes Vilato, Sheila Escovedo, Antonio Portuondo, Pepe Espinosa, Jose Luis Quintana “Changuito” for the timbales!!!!  For the tumbadoras or congas; Tata Guines Ibae, Mongo Santamaria Ibae, Patato Valdez Ibae, Jesus Alfonso Miro Ibae, Ray Barreto Ibae, Miguel Anga Diaz Ibae, Rolando Salgado”El Nino Mentira”

 What was your first musical break or recording??

 My first musical major performance was playing with the Santana Band in 1976 New Year’s Eve at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. It was a sold out show with Santana and the Grateful Dead. I performed Oye Como Va with the Santana band. I was three years old and my father Chepito had me play.

 Tell us about the SHORELINE Santana reunion show in 1988, you played at that with the original band it was very interesting – tell us about that night with them???

 It was very, very exciting! My father playing in the reunion concert with all the original members of Santana…..it was very special……I had the opportunity to play as well on Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen and my dad gave me the Timbale solo and we did a duet. I also was honored to play Oye Como Va on timbales, it was very special to share the stage with all the great musicians in the band. I was about 15 years old playing my heart out with The Santana Band……..20th anniversary, a real milestone classic.

 What were your music influences then, what turned you on to music and excited you??

 Santana, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Malo, Sapo with Richard Bean, I loved Latin rock music; I loved the congas of Patato Valdez y Mongo Santamaria and Jerry Gonzalez. The sound of the congas, the rthymn and the feeling of excitement.

[Show as slideshow]

 When did you hook up with Gregg Rolie, and what was it like playing with Mike Carabello??

 I connected with Gregg Rolie when they were recording the Abraxas Pool CD in 1994. I recorded with my father and his All – Star band, with Gregg Rolie, Michael Carabello, Neal Schon, Jose Chepito Areas , Alphonso Johnson and Michael Shrieve. It was awesome playing with Abraxas Pool and playing with uncle Michael Carabello was beautiful……..he’s a great conguero with his signature style…….we have had great times playing throughout the years.

 Tell us about playing on Abraxas Pool, where was it recorded, you played on Ya Llego?? Right – tell us more about that???

 When we recorded Ya Llego for Abraxas Pool.we were at the old Journey recording studio in Oakland, CA my father and I wrote Ya Llego, a Rumba Guaguanco, featuring Michael Carabello, Jose Chepito Areas and Me on Quinto……Alphonso Johnson on the bass with the tasty bass line, they added singers after…..Carlito Franco and some other of my dad’s friend

 What about the newer percussionist for Gregg Rolie, Elliot “Toby” Borrerro?? How did you meet him and hook up with him?

 Elliot Toby Borrero is a great conguero and a great friend of mine. I met him at the Guitar Center in 2000, I was working there before I started touring with The Gregg Rolie Band. Toby and I had a open Jam Session at Guitar Center San Francisco when it was on Mission St. We became very close throughout the years.

What records have you done with Gregg, what were your next projects then?

I recorded on the Abraxas Pool CD, the Gregg Rolie Band “Roots” CD and the Gregg Rolie Band “Rain Dance” Live CD.
I have my very own Latin Jazz Band now, The Adrian Areas Latin Jazz Ensemble we have a two CD Deal with Pursuance Records. The first CD is “Inspiracion”, it will be released in June 2012 to be followed by the CD “After the Rain”, which is the second CD. I have an all star band featuring Alex Specht on Piano, Antonio Garcia on baby bass, Elliot Toby Borrero on quinto, cajon, bongos, shekere, campana y guiro, Sandor Merlin Moss on drums and Adrian Areas on the Tumbadoras. We have original material and great arrangements of jazz standards with intense rythmn changes and very tasty melodic material.

 Tell us about other recording or live music projects you have been involved with?

 I have recorded with The Steve Miller Band, Michael Franti and Spearhead, The Braxton Brothers, Mingus Amungus, Gregg Rolie Band. I have my very own Adrian Areas Latin Jazz Ensemble with a two CD deal with Pursuance records. First CD is called “Inspiracion”, the second is called “After the Rain”. I’m also involved in the Project de Congueros with Adrian Areas, Javier Navarrette,and Jaz Sawyer. We have a two CD deal with Pursuance Records, it’s a heavy duty band.The Next generation of Latin Jazz. I’m continuing touring with the Gregg Rolie Band. I’ve been with Gregg Rolie Band for 12 years and I’m extremely blessed and extremely grateful to be able to play my music with great friends. Thanks to God!!

 What kind of music are you trying to do on these CD’

The latest things I’m creating is tasty Latin jazz….preserving Latin jazz is very important to me, listening to Tito Puente and Jerry Gonzalez and The Fort Apache Band ,The Afro Cuban Allstars all have been influential to my playing percussion. Listening to the great Armando Peraza, Carlos ‘Patato’ Valdez and Mongo Santamaria helped shape my style of playing, also Rumba De Cuba like the Munequitos de Matanzas. Los Papines,Yoruba Andabo, Rumberos de Cuba all have influenced my playing percussion. My heart is with Latin Jazz, it helps me to be free and at the same time challenge my playing style with endless improvisation. Latin Jazz is what I’m doing with my solo project “Adrian Areas Latin Jazz Ensemble”

Tell us about Latin rock percussion playing, what makes it different to you?

 Latin Rock playing is different and very intense and loud its Rock Music!!!!! More cowbell!!!! You have a lot of musical freedom because the timbales, is a lead instrument in Latin Rock music, like the guitar it has its spotlight. You have to use your ears and wisdom of playing to reproduce a signature sound. It’s a formula, like the great Armando Peraza says” you have to have the Groove and then everything else builds and when its time to solo you do what you do with your own sound”

 How do you see Latin rock timbale solos, what ‘story” are you trying to tell Adrian???

 My life, the good times, bad times, sad times, funny times, I mix it up……thanks to God I’m here to tell the story……when I solo its deep because of all the practice all the sacrifice all the hard work and dedication……it all comes out. The river is deep and full of magic”

 About other timbaleros in the Latin Rock SF scene and beyond that you admire?? Then and also now??

 I like Gibby Ross on timbales he’s amazing and Tony Menjivar on congas, also Raul Rekow is a great conguero and Karl Perazo is a wonderful timbalero. Michael Carabello and Jose Chepito Areas; what a combination. Coke Escovedo and Pete Escovedo are great players and composers as well. Sheila Escovedo is a great timbalero and conguera, I admire her style and how she crossed over to jazz, pop, rock and R&B. I’m a true fan of Sheila and  I always looked up to her. Elliot Toby Borrero is heavy duty on the tumbadoras and a great friend. I’ve also been influenced by Rolando Salgado “El Nino Mentira. The conga player for  the Afro Cuban Allstars. Gracias Nino por Inspirarme. I have to say thanks to God for blessing me with the gift of playing music.

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• 

[Show as slideshow]

Where and when were you born and when did you start to play the guitar or any other instruments?

I was born, Alfred Charles Redwine, in San Francisco, Ca. 6:58am, Sept 23rd 1955.
My dad Mr Alfred Redwine loved the guitar, and always kept one around me as early as three years old, he did not play, but he always wanted me to play.
Growing up, I loved music, Elvis, The Beatles, James Brown I had posters all over my walls, listening to records every day.
I really got serious about music in Jr. High school in S.F., I started to play the stand up Bass, but I was not making progress, Then my mother and father got me a bass guitar for Christmas when I was 14, and I got it together almost over night. When I went back to school, I found that the teacher was teaching me right handed, and at home I was playing left handed.
I started to jam with my friends, but the problem was; my best friend at the time Raymond Brown played the bass too. It was cool when we studied together, but when it came to jamming, he played or I played, we never got to jam together, and all our friends would compare us after each jam, and that got old. So I started to play lead guitar!
In S. F. at the time I was growing up as a teenager, music was all over the city. My dad was a security guard at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West on Market Street so I got to see all the best bands at an early sober age.
My childhood friend Calvin Tillery is a great singer and was even as a young child, he told me he had a cousin who sang in a band, she was Linda Tillery who used to let us come to her performances with Chuck Berry, It’s a Beautiful Day and Al Kooper, it was a great place for a young want-a-be musician to be.
One day in Junior High, my friend Raymond asked me if I had seen Santana on The Ed Sullivan Show, I had never heard of them until then, but it seems that my whole life changed after I did hear them!
I started High School at Mission High! {Carlos Santana went to Mission High, every day there would be a least five to ten people worshipping his alumni picture in the hallway.}
Mission High school was a great school for me, I was not a good student, I was always cutting class and sitting under a palm tree playing my guitar a cross the street at Dolores Park, (which by the way, had the best percussions park jams in the city.
One day a teacher (Mr Barton) told me, “If you come in the school we’ll offer you, your own class with no teachers, just you students who want to play music.” (It was called Jam Class). I said O.K. “I’ll go in the building for that!”

What was your first musical break or recording??

Well…. Jam class on the first, was chaos at it’s best, the teachers had to offer this program to all the students in the school and everybody wanted to get out of class, so almost the whole school was there.
In the mission district at the time almost everyone played the timbales and not well, we had too much of everything, but over time the class became just, myself, Greg Landau, Leonard Briant, Joe Burnsten and the late Nazario a great pianist who played with Mongo Santamaria at five years old. We really did teach other things, it was the best thing that happened to us, Greg Landau went on to be a noted producer of Cuban Music.

What were your music influences then, what turned you on to music and excited you??

During and after High School I played with Pure Funk (Funk group) from South Park, I also played with
Cosmic Popcorn (a rock band) from Marin, in 1975 a good friend Larry Baker was trying out to play drums with a band Chepito Areas and Micheal Carabello was putting together. So I went with him as he tried out, well Larry was good but he had not studied the 6\8 rhythm, so he did not get the gig, so he asked me to jam on the bass since it was his last song, so I did, and it was a hot jam. Afterwards Cobra’s manager Charlie (Buddha) Gracia asked me to bring my guitar the next day, I did, and then I was in Cobra with “The Big Boys!”

When did you hook up with Cobra, what were your next projects then? Tell us about the recordings you have made with them

These guys played hard, loud and strong, since I had been there for all of Larry’s try outs, I knew the songs they were playing, I also knew the bass player Freddy Ancheta from High school, Al Moody got the drum job. He had been playing with Sly Stone for some time, Greg [El Gato] Watts on keyboards; he had that Billy Preston thing down, The other Greg (Popeye) Dawkins on vibes was cool he also play harp and sang, Fernando Arragon on guitar, “Georgia” was on vocals; man she could sing and she was a sweet person.

Did you record or tour with Cobra, what were
your next projects then? Tell us about the recordings
you have made with them?

I was with Cobra for about a year and a half, if that long. They were practicing in Daly City at the time I joined, around the corner from my Mom’s apartment.
They were going to call the band “Attitude”, but everyone was wearing snake skin boots at the time, so one of the names in the hat was Cobra, which I voted for.
We toured a little; we went to Oregon, also to a little town outside of Portland called Zig-Zag. The ride up was fun, I would always travel with the roadies, because we’d get to places first and get to know the people first and my best friends were the roadies, Robert Shrieve (he was the cousin of the drummer of Santana’s Michael Shrieve, and he was also Chepito’s personal roadie) Bill {the Roadie}, and a Gadget-man, who’s name I have forgotten. We were riding along, all of us stoned on L.S.D, when I got the idea, “Hey what if somebody try’s to rob us with all this equipment”. Then the Gadget-man pulls out a big 45 pistol and said, “Nobody is going to fuck with us”, and then that is when I started to worry about the Gadget-man.

We rode up in three Winnebago motor homes, and got to the town, they gave us a nice condo to stay in, and a ounce of tie-sticks (a potent form of grass). The gig was a birthday party for a gentleman who wanted me to play Happy Birthday “Jimi Hendrix style”. They gave us a big plate full of cocaine, they passed it down the line of musicians while we were playing, you should of seen the guys, trying to scoop up stuff in little papers, by the time it got to me, it was nothing but that which was stuck to the plate, and that was about two grams or so.

Our trip to Hawaii was so much fun. This was around 1975-76 Diamond-Head Crater Festival, 10,000 people. We got to Hawaii the day after Christmas, I was with the roadies and Stan Marcum, the ex-manager for Santana, we got the gig I found out later, only if we or Buddha (Cobra manager) could bring Sly Stone to come and he did.
At that time most of the guys were really strung out on heroin, and being in Hawaii there was no smack, so I think somebody went back to San Francisco to get some. Before the gig the guys were all fucked-up, I mean it was funny, one guy could not put his tape on his fingers, I was young so it scared me at first, so I went over to my friend, and said, “Hey man you want me to help” he said, “Hey yea Al, that would be cool” While he was wetting, then he said, ” Hey man, you better not laugh”!
We were backstage before the big show, it was beautiful they had a big table with every-kind of food. Drinks, pot, women in bikinis, I was in rock ‘n’ roll heaven, Billy Preston, Herbie Hancock, all the stars,!
One of the guys was backstage just before we went on, with whole hand full of beanies, uppers, shaking and saying, “Hey Al, you want some”. I was like, “Oh man; this is going to be a fucked-up show!”

They said we could use anything we wanted as far as equipment was concerned. So, I had just seen the Rolling Stones that year and I saw that they used Ampeg SVT amps, so I asked for two of those, with a echoplex, distortion pedal, and a wah-wah unit.  I asked our roadie for two joints and a bottle of grape juice! From listening to tapes of me playing drunk I didn’t want to be all fucked up that day!
Now I didn’t give you a picture of Chepito’s personality, when it came to the women in the band……Well as you know Chepito is one of the greatest percussionists in the world, but it is not easy to work with him.
One thing Chepito was good at, was doing a roll, turning around like James Brown, and hitting the cymbal right on the beat…..well he used to like for the girl singer (Georgia) to stand next to him…..so he would do that roll turn around, pinch the singer on the butt so she would yell Huh!! Just right on the beat.
It was funny, but not to the women, one women from the Funkadelic-Parliament group was with us for a little while, Chepito tried that move one time with her, and you could hear her say in a very low voice “Look you little sawed off mother-fucker if you try that again I will kick your ass”. She didn’t stay in the band for long.

We did another gig of the north shore of Hawaii!

We toured in Oregon, California, and Hawaii, where we did the 75-76 Crater Festival, Best show ever with10.000 people, we went on after Cheech and Chong at 3:00 in the afternoon, I knew I died and went to rock and roll heaven. Meanwhile back at the gig.. and just before we got on stage there was a Musician Union-man asking for everyone’s union card, we didn’t have no cards. So we just pushed him off the side of the stage ….10,000 people waiting.. we went on after Cheech and Chong so the people were waiting to hear some music. The first song was in 6\8 and that started out like shit.
Chepito had a look on his face and then he said “Oh fuck you”…we finally got it together and it was great, Fernando had the first solo, but….you see, Fernando wasn’t always nice to the roadies…and he took it for granted that they would hook his sound up, but….Fernando was great with a wah-wah pedal, but the roadies gave him a volume pedal…so I had to take all the solos that day!
Chepito did his butt pinch to Georgia in front of 10,000 people, so she just quit right away that night!
Backstage I met the late (Terry Kath from Chicago) what a great person, he gave me that spirit of hope for my music.
Back in the day, at that time, drugs were everywhere, and in Cobra there were lots, Al Moody and myself were kids at that time. We were pot smokers, and would sniff some coke, if it were free, but some of the other guys were (The Big Boys) and they did not play around.

When we got back to S. F. after the tour, the band was not happy with Freddy the bass player, we had a meeting and everyone wanted Doug Rauch to play bass, well we told Freddy, and Freddy said “If you guys kick me out of the band, I’m going jump out this window.” (Well, we were three stories up in an old office building), everyone looked like, “So what!” then he said, “and I’m going to take someone with me” then everyone said, “Oh no Freddy you can play!!” After that Doug Rauch did join us and Gail Muldrow (guitar, vocals) and Henry Blandon. We did a big gig at Bimbos in North Beach.
We recorded some songs at Columbia Recording studios in S.F.
It has been years since I heard them, all good songs, and produced very well, I took some good guitar solos.

Playing with Olatunji and Carlos Santana.

I moved to Hawaii after playing that gig there, got married and we had two boys, I then played in Honolulu for ten years, while in Hawaii I added Shival to my name now I’m Al “Shival” Redwine. While playing in Hawaii I met and got to play with the late Babatunde Olatunji who wrote Jingo, which is on the first Santana album. After playing, Baba (as we all use to call him) he invited me and my girlfriend at the time (Marijah Speizale), singer, songwriter and percussionist to play on his album that was going to be produced by Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, with Airto and Carlos Santana.
To think I had to think about the offer, cause I was working 7 nights a week, on Hotel Street, and I didn’t want to lose my gig, but a friend of mine a guitar player from New Orleans said “Hey if you go I’m going to get this gig, but if you don’t want to play with Santana, I’ll take that gig!”
I said “O.K. I’m going” and I’m glad I did, it was the best move I’ve made. The album is called Dance to the Beat Of My Drum by Babatunde Olatunji; we recorded it at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. I toured with Babatunde up and down California in 1985/86.
Working with Olatunji, Santana and Airto and Mickey Hart,
That was a fun time, everyday going to work at Fantasy Studios, was great, we had Bobby Vega on Bass, Frank {Baba’s assistant} on guitar.
The first day, Mickey Hart said Carlos will do all the guitar work, then my Girlfriend at the time (singer-percussonist-songwriter Marijah Speziale, Said “wait a minute Baba, me and Shival came all way from hawaii to play on this album” then Baba ” O.K, only Carlos, Frank and Shival’
So I owe thanks to Marijah for speaking up for me. “Thank you Marijah!”
One day working on the album , Bobby Vega says to me, ” Hey man we’re going to lunch with Carlos you be in the mix. so i took heed. and jumped in the car with Bobby and Carlos, we got to the place, there was big table of us all from the studio, all I had was $5.00 bucks in my pocket so ordered a salad which was $4.95, when it was time to pay, everybody took out their money, Carlos looked at everyone and said, “Hey, leave that for the tip, I’ll pay the bill”, I thought that was cool and class, ” My hero!”

Tell us about Latin rock guitar playing, what makes it different to you? About other guitarists in the Latin Rock SF scene and beyond that you admire?? Then and now??

I moved to L. A. in 1987, where I joined the reggae band Roughneck Posse, I went with the band to San Diego, where we won The San Diego Music Award for Best Reggae Band in 1989.
In 1991 I started my own band, with my son Balaram Redwine on bass called The Shival Experience. The style of music is Dreadadelic! Our website is www.shivalexperience.com <http://www.shivalexperience.com/> We have 3 albums out and are currently working on the 4th.
We play here in this county, but we do tour. We’ve   been to Cabo San Lucas, Maine, Florida, Yellow  Stone.
The Latin music and the San Francisco Latin music community has enriched my life.  Thank you, musicians, sound people, roadies and all the people!!

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