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.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: Abel Zarate, Carlos Santana, Jim McCarthy, Latin Rock

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

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

Tags: Buddy Miles, Diamond Head Crater, Honolulu, Neal Schon

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!!

 

Tags: Airto, Bimbo's 365 Club, Carlos Santana, Doug Rauch, Jim Mc Carthy, Latin Rock, Santana, Voices of Latin Rock

Interview by Kenny Wardell

Dr. Bernardo Gonzales (also known around town as “Doctor Rock”) is one of the producers of the Voices of Latin Rock benefit concert for Autism Awareness that will return to Bimbo’s on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012.

BAM: You’re a successful dentist in San Francisco, Dr. Gonzalez. What is your connection to the Bay Area Latin music scene?

Doctor Rock: I do a lecture at the College of San Mateo once a year. I tell the students that when I was 15 years old, I saw the movie Woodstock. And, when I saw the Santana band playing “Soul Sacrifice,” I no longer wanted to play baseball.

It was like, whatever the heck they are doing, I wanted to do that. I started in high school in 1969, and being a young Hispanic kid in Redwood City, that was something I could call my own. Everybody else was into Led Zeppelin, and I was listening to music that was Latin-oriented. As far as I was concerned, there was nobody else other than Santana…that’s all I listened to for about four years. So I totally got into it, and then there was Malo, Azteca. And then I got into music my parents would play with some percussion, Spanish lyrics, but with a beat and a guitar.

via Voices of Latin Rock Return to Bimbo’s For 8th Annual Autism Awareness Benefit.

Tags: Bimbo's 365 Club, Carlos Santana, Dr. Bernie Gonzalez, Jim McCarthy, Voices of Latin Rock

Wednesday, (September 7th 10. 22:00) on BBC Radio 2

SYNOPSIS
Craig Charles presents the story of one of the world’s greatest guitarists, Mexican-born Carlos Santana, who burst on to the San Francisco music scene in the late 1960s, playing a unique blend of Latin rock with his band Santana. A truly original “world music” ambassador, he has sold more than 90 million records, including Evil Ways, Oye Como Va, Black Magic Woman and, more recently, the multi-Grammy award winning album, Supernatural, which attracted a younger generation of Santana fans.
Santana’s story is told through the words of Carlos himself; and some of the musicians he has worked with including drummer Michael Shrieve, jazz guitarist and spiritual soul mate John McLaughlin, Scottish singer Alex Ligertwood; record company legend Clive Davis, who signed Santana to Columbia back in 1969; former roadie and soundman Herbie Herbert, who witnessed the original recording band at their peak from the side of the stage; and we hear from the next generation of the Santana musical dynasty, Santana’s piano playing son Salvador.

In the first programme, Clive Davis remembers the excitement of signing the Santana band, and early hits like Evil Ways, Jingo, Oye Como Va, and Black Magic Woman. The marriage worked well and Davis, along with rock promoter Bill Graham, steered the band to major success.
One of their biggest breaks was playing at Woodstock as an unknown band. Drummer Michael Shrieve remembers looking out at an “ocean of faces” and “just playing for themselves rather than being entertainers”. He also recalls the ambition and focus of the young Carlos Santana. When Shrieve asked if Carlos wanted to go the cinema, the reply was: “Why would I want to go the movies? I wanna be in the movies. I wanna be the movie”.

We hear how their hard work and constant rehearsing paid off and how the introduction of the Latin rhythms gave Santana a totally unique sound on hits like Samba Pa Ti, on their second album Abraxas. But with success, came excess, and former roadie Herbie Herbert remembers the spiralling effect. Despite making a terrific third album, Santana III, the band was self-destructing.
Shrieve and Carlos describe the natural progression into jazz and experimental music which coincided with a more spiritual path and the influence of Indian spiritual teacher Sri Chimnoy. John McLaughlin, a fellow Sri Chimnoy follower, recalls their spiritual and musical collaboration on the 1973 album Love Devotion Surrender.

Amidst the experimentation, Carlos was under heavy pressure to return to a more commercial rock sound. No longer a band, but Carlos Santana with backing musicians, he struggled to regain the fire and popularity of that original band. By the end of the century, Santana records were not hitting the charts anymore, but a comeback was just round the corner with the 15 times platinum album Supernatural.

Tags: Carlos Santana, Jim McCarthy, Michael Shrieve, Voices of Latin Rock

Victor Pantoja from Ralph Riccardi on Vimeo.

Victor Pantoja; conguero par excellence has passed on the morning of March 12, 2010 at 6:00 am. I had the pleasure of interviewing Victor Pantoja thru a visit to Mike Carabello, who was then living in Fairfax, California, this was in the year 1991. I interviewed Victor over the phone for a magazine feature I was doing. I didn’t in fact use some of that till writing the Voices of Latin Rock book.

I remember Carabello telling me, how he had brought Victor in, to hang around the Santana camp, as he had loved his playing with Willie Bobo and Gabor Szabo and Chico Hamilton. Santana had included Hamilton’s song Conquistadores in their early sets. Pantoja also came onto the Santana tour of 1971, playing alongside at various gigs, Rico Reyes, Coke & Pete Escovedo.

Pantoja ended up being recorded at Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles Live set from the Diamond Crater in Hawaii. He also played on the outtake Banbeye, which can be heard on the Santana 3 two CD Legacy Edition, released in 2005. (This edition has new and detailed sleeve notes by myself).

Pantoja had an earthy style, sparse in places, with each slap and beat echoing his Cubano background. Standout cuts from Victor for Latin rock freaks will be the two Azteca recordings, Malo’s debut album, the Luis Gasca solo recording, Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles Live plus
the aforementioned Santana 3rd album outtake Banbeye.
But his exhilarating playing on the Gabor Szabo cuts and with Willie Bobo and Chico Hamilton bear renewed investigation and show his earthy, soulful brilliance.

Please find a filmed interview from Voices Of Latin Rock Year 5 show, this was filmed backstage on Saturday January 24th 2009 at The Warfield; San Francisco. God Bless you Victor. RIP.
Here is an unedited excerpt of Victor talking that mostly did not make the Voices book.

“Victor Pantoja; “ I was born in Puerto Rico, raised in New York. I started playing when I was eight years old, then I went on to play with Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puente, Machito, loads of others. My first band was with my sister. I played drums too, on top. I was with The Harry James Orchestra, when I was about fifteen. ‘

Mike Carabello had brought Victor Pantoja into the Santana scene during recording of the 3rd album. Chepito had suffered a brain haemorrage just as Santana were due to tour Europe in 1971. Coke Escovedo guested and toured on Santana 3, (during the time of Chepito Areas’ illness) just before the band were due to go on the road, starting in Ghana, Africa. Ghana was then just entering the first flush of it’s independence from Britain and the concert was a planned celebration, featuring the cream of US soul and jazz, such as Roberta Flack, Les McCann & Eddie Harris, Wilson Pickett and Ike & Tina Turner.

John Santos; “ Pete Escovedo sang with Mongo on Mongo’s Charanga. Victor Pantoja is Puerto Rican, not Cuban, he played with the Orchestre Cacho in Puerto Rico, he played bongoes and congas, then he was with Herbie Mann and then they both hit the Latin Rock scene with Azteca, after they’d touched Santana on the Third album. Victor was very influenced by Carlos Patato Valdes.”

Victor Pantoja; “ I played with Herbie Mann, we went to Europe, when I got back, I played with Jimmy Smith. I knew Luis Gasca from the Stan Kenton days. I came out to California, playing with Wes Montogomery . I had also met Willie Bobo, we were from the same neighbourhood, that was the barrio. We used to play at a place called Count Basie’s.“

Herbie Herbert; “ When the band was splitting up, we tried to change the spiral by dosing them with liquid Owsley. It was Gregg’s first trip, we took the drops too, to stay on the same page. It was the most electrifying show at Cobo Hall at Detroit and
Carlos was wondering what was going on, Gregg said we’re all tripping. This was about two days after Carlos and the percussion had their Mexican standoff. After at the Howard Johnson, things were really crazy with Booker T. They had the whole floor of the Howard Johnson and they never lost the attitude, y’know fighting, Victor Pantoja had a knife pulled on him by Booker T. He wanted to kill Victor. Victor was screaming his head off, he wants to kill someone else, it was crazy.”

Victor Pantoja; “ We used to do Evil Ways with Willie Bobo, Santana did it but we didn’t make a dime. I met Mike Carabello in San Francisco, I love him to death. I played a couple of times with Santana, it was cool, I also played on the Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles Live album.”

Discography
Nat Adderley- Autobiography (1965)
El Chico- Chico Hamilton (1965)
Spanish Grease – Willie Bobo (1965)
Uno Dos Tres – Willie Bobo (1965)
Spellbinder- Gabor Szabo (1966)
Soul Sauce-Cal Tjader (1966)
Further Adventures of Chico-Chico Hamilton (1967)
Do What You Want To Do-Willie Bobo (1968)
Much Les- Les McCann (1969)
Memphis Two-Step-Herbie Mann (1971)
For Those Who Chant – Luis Gasca (1972)
Azteca (1972)
Bluesmith-Jimmy Smith (1972)
Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles Live (1972)
Iapetus- Hadley Caliman (1972)
Malo- (1972)
Pyramid Of The Moon-Azteca (1973)
Betty Davis (1973)
Standard School Broadcast (1973)
Born To Love You. Luis Gasca (1974)
They Say I’m Different-Betty Davis (1974)
Canyon Lady-Joe Henderson (1975)
Montara-Bobby Hutcherson (1975)
Fantasy. Luis Gasca (1976)
Giants (1978)
Hell Of An Act to Follow (1978)
Huracan-Cal Tjader (1978)
Bobo (1979)
Mwandishi Complete Recordings-Herbie Hancock (1994)
Senorita-Malo (1995)
Roots Of Acid Jazz – Cal Tjader (1996)
Blue Movies –Various (1997)
No Dancing Please-Mento Buro (1998)
Blue Bossa-Various (1998)
Ay Califas- Raza Rock of 70’s & 80’s –Various (1978)
Celebracion- Malo 4 CD box (2001)
Crossings-Herbie Hancock Re-issue (2001)
A New Dimension-Willie Bobo (2002)
Santana 3 – 2 x CD (Legacy Edition)

Apologies if any stuff is missing?

Tags: Victor Pantoja

Radical roots music!!
Santana doing Savor-Jingo in 1970.
This is a burner!

Tags: Carlos Santana, Jim McCarthy, latin muisc, Mission District, Santana

Please find some mock-ups plus information on new Jorge Santana Webspace with forum and new CD release to follow.

Further review details will be posted, after we have had time to listen to the the upcoming CD. It features rare and unreleased material from his career, varying from 80’s and 90’s studio material Plus later stuff with Puro Bandidos etc……

We look forward to the possible release in the future of unreleased material that would have formed the recording of a follow- up to Malo’s Ascension, album,
which we believe was recorded in 1974 and 1975 period.
© Jim McCarthy- September 2009.

Tags: Ascension, Brothers, Jorge Santana, Love The Way, Malo, Pablo Tellez, Richard Bean, Sacred Fire, Santana, Suavecito, Tomato Records

Rain Dance is a new live CD taken from the same performance filmed for a potential DVD release (which has hit some technical buffers at present). The live CD is available to buy and download from Amazon.com and from the soon-to-be-revamped Gregg Rolie web space and also at Rolie Band gigs. There are some minor backing vocals overdubs but apart from that it’s the raw deal, as was played at the concert.
It is an independently produced item and Gregg’s son Sean Rolie handled the remixing chores. As Gregg states” I hired him because he’s good at what he does, not because he’s my son??” The CD was given the final production by Gregg and Ron Wikso.

It is initially released as a limited edition run of around 2000 copies. The CD is a document of a 2007 performance at the Sturgis Motorbike Rally concert. It features many of the old Santana favourites from the first three recordings. And there is one cut from the Abraxas Pool CD and which was re-imagined again on the Roots CD, which is Going Home. Give It To Me is also culled from the Roots CD recording. There are two newer songs Bailamos El Son and Across The Water.

The Santana back catalogue is well represented by Jingo, Soul Sacrifice, Black Magic Woman, Gypsy Queen, No One To Depend On, Oye Como Va and Evil Ways. The early band’s version of Albert King blues favourite As The Years Go Passing By with its Latinised double tempo burnout is also included. The CD timing totals around the seventy minutes of music mark.

Talking to Gregg on a blazing hot Texas morning found him reflective of the current state of the music and wider markets and wanting to represent the Rolie Band sound to fans at gigs as well thru the dwindling outlets now present for recorded music. “ We are doing around ten gigs this year and we are actively looking for more. The recent gig at the Hard Rock Café was great, they showed the original Santana band at Woodstock doing Soul Sacrifice from the film, projected on a screen in front of the stage and during the conga solos, the screen lifted and we went straight in picking the song up, where they had left it.”

He also reflected on the Gregg Rolie Band, “The band are great, because we all really enjoy each other and I think the sound reflects the fun we are having. We subtitle the band; “Santana- the way you remember it” And at that gig in New York recently, we had half of the original Santana, that’s about the closest you’re ever gonna’ get, to seeing that band together again!
Michael Shrieve came down and sat in and it was fantastic!
He is such a lyrical player and he makes me smile when he would do a certain thing or a fill and I’d remember his playing style, very on the jazzier end but just so stylish. Ron Wikso my regular drummer is heavier and a real solid player too.”

He remembered the recent remixing and augmenting of the Woodstock film re-mastering by Eddie Kramer. “Carlos redid his rhythm guitar parts as they was a lot of leakage in the sound. And there was a lot of tuning problems that day- the guitar was out of tune and the tuning stuff was difficult for everybody. Carlos’ solos were great and there was no problem there. Mike Carabello and Adrian Areas did some fine tuning on guiro and the timbale cowbell patterns as well, due to the leakage during the original set.”

Rain Dance is out now and a must for Gregg Rolie fans, Hammond B3 enthusiasts, Latin rockers and Santana completists.

Tags: Gregg Rolie, Michael Shrieve, Rain Dance, Ron Wikso, Santana

You’ve heard his voice and keyboards on such classic Santana hits as “Black Magic Woman”, “Evil Ways”, “No One To Depend On”, “Everybody’s Everything” and “Oye Como Va”, now legendary Santana / Journey founding member, and Rock n Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Gregg Rolie is preparing to release a DVD of his band in concert at the Sturgis Motorcycle Ralley in 2007. Shot with 17 cameras, the Gregg Rolie Band whip up an exciting memorable performance featuring all the beloved Santana hits, as well as tracks from his 2001 critically acclaimed solo CD ‘Roots’.

Along with preparations for the new DVD release, Gregg Rolie will be featured on the PBS special Trini Lopez Presents The Legends of Latin Music. Filmed at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles last October, the program will be aired in March 2009. Celebrating its 40th Anniversary, this year Warner Home Videos will be releasing a Blu-ray and DVD Ultimate Collector’s Edition with high definition picture and sound of ‘Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music’, which will also feature two hours of bonus material, some of it newly-discovered. Much to the elation of fans worldwide, extra footage of Santana’s historic Woodstock performance will be included. Held at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas on Saturday March 23, along with Santana alumni Michael Shrieve, Gregg will reside on a discussion panel of performers, film-makers and key technicians who helped create the timeless music classic and Oscar winning ‘Best Documentary’ Woodstock.

“The first time I played with Gregg everything just clicked. In a humble way, it was very much like McCartney and Lennon. You know when there’s chemistry there. Drummers came and went; congeros came and went, but his feeling and my feeling…sometimes it was hard to tell who was the needle and who was the thread.” Carlos Santana

Gregg Rolie is responsible for co-founding two phenomenally popular, multi-platinum super groups – Santana and Journey. In 1998, the world-class keyboardist/vocalist/producer was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame as part of the original Santana band. Formed in San Francisco in 1969, the multi-cultural ensemble produced three groundbreaking hit albums which yeilded several FM staples. “There’s one unique ability of the band, ” Gregg told music critic Ben Fong-Torres, “and that was that it created music that there is no name for… Santana’s music is such a jell of different material that there just is no name for it, and there’s no one that plays it like Santana does.” Departing after the pioneering jazz fusion offering ‘Caravansarai’ in 1972, both band members Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon went on to form quintessential 1980s hit-makers Journey. After co-writing and producing the band’s first 7 albums, along with constant touring, Gregg decided to leave Journey once the hugely successful 1981 live double LP ‘Captured’ was issued. During the ’80s Rolie wrote, produced and played on the Santana albums ‘Shango’ and ‘Freedom’, and released his debut, self-titled 1985 solo album and its 1987 follow-up ‘Gringo’, before co-founding the all-new Journey-esque rock group The Storm at the tail end of the decade. The Storm released two albums: 1992′s eponymous disc that yeilded the #13 Billboard Hot 100 hit “I’ve Got A Lot To Learn About Love” and 1996′s ‘Eye Of The Storm’. That same year, Rolie, along with five other original Santana members, formed Abraxis Pool, a spirited collaboration that resulted in the 1997 critically acclaimed album of the same name.

Thirty-five years after Gregg and Carlos met in San Francisco, 2001 marked the release of Rolie’s third solo album ‘Roots’. The first-ever release on Bay-Area based Tower Records’ new proprietary label 33rd Street, ‘Roots’ finds Gregg revisiting the incredible brew of sounds he helped conjure up in the late ’60s. Rolie calls ‘Roots’ twelve original selections “Latin rock plus; instrumentation is Latin percussion, with organ, guitar, horns, and lots of great solo work and songwriting, ” adding that “I really wanted to go all the way back to my Santana roots.”

The Gregg Rolie Band consists of founding Santana member Michael Carabello on Congas, Adrian Areas (son of original Santana percussionist Jose Chepito Areas) on Timbales, drummer Ron Wikso (who was also in The Storm), Kurt Griffey on guitars, internationally acclaimed bassist, Chapman Stick artist and Santana alumni Alphonso Johnson and former Jean Luc Ponty keyboardist Wally Minko. “If you are having a good time at anything you do, you are going to do a good job at what you do, ” Gregg recently told music critic Jim Harrington. “That’s really where the key to this band is. We really just enjoy each other a tremendous amount and have a lot of fun with this. We will get up to playing about 50 dates a year, and really that’s all I want to do.” The Gregg Rolie Band will be performing throughout 2009 with tour dates listed on his official website.

Tags: Carlos Santana, Gregg Rollie, Michael Shrieve, Mike Carabelo