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

Tags: christmas, Jim Mc Carthy, zombie

[Show as slideshow]

When I travel to the USA, which has been at least 15 or so times over the last decade. I have been heartened and surprised by meeting so many Believers within the Latin-Rock community. Firstly; I recall Gabe Manzo and Tony Menjivar and I spent a great night at the top of the Mark Hopkins Hotel, which towers over downtown San Francisco. On the 19th floor, Gabe and Tony were doing a gig with Congas Y Guitarras . We got to talking and it was there I shared my testimony of coming to Christ and the subsequent changes after this life-changing event. Gabe and Tony were also involved in a CD release called Bueno (sponsored by Dr Bernie Gonzalez) that is a truly excellent piece of both Christian and Latino based music. I also remembered way back in 1999 after a Malo / Tierra gig in Ventura (just outside Los Angeles), being in my hotel room and the Word springing out at me (being “quickened” in spiritual parlance) from a Gideon’s Bible (as usually found in hotel rooms in the USA). I had driven down with Ron Sansoe from San Francisco and all these events, small as they may seem, were stepping stones and building blocks to my emerging faith. I have always liked the open and frank way these Americanmusicos have shared their belief and faith. It felt very freeing after the post-Christian society that is contemporary England, in which it almost politically incorrect to talk about Jesus Christ. Talk about New Age or Buddhism say, and people are OK with it; mention the Holy Name of Jesus and they shy away. There is something so challenging even about the name that people will baulk at even the mention of it.

This leads on to a review that follows Richard Spremich’s recent interview on this site. Breath, Spirit and Life is a tasty collection of Holy Spirit filled songs with a contemporary Latin, soul and funk feel.

The ten track CD opens with Christo and the horn charged intro leads to a deep Latin groove, infused with piano and a vocal that reminded me so much of Gabriel Manzo’s (Malo/Manzo/Bueno) vocals.
Heavily compressed vocals in the Salsa style give this tune an added urgency. The song sits in a nice medium paced groove. The tune enjoys both English and Spanish vocals. A nice cleantrompeta solo followed by trombone break lifts the song also. A crisp timbale break breaks up the songs feel for a few bars.

The second track Yeshua is deliberately reminiscent of Suavecito with a nice timbale cascara rhythm. Sweet harmony vocals add a warm edge to the songs chorus. Again the horns are very well arranged. Not surprising as it also features original Malo horn man Roy Murray.

Another horn-led piece of funk is calledWe’re Beloved Of The Lord. The phat horn charts are reminiscent of the mighty Tower Of Power; a sultry vocal from Kimberlee Leber and Tony Martinez is down home and funkified. Spremich’s drumming is subtle but funky and deep in the pocket. It is nice to hear Spremich clearly as on the Malo albums I felt the trap kit buried a little in the sound mixes under the general percussive onslaught.

Fly Like An Eagle follows and sees Spremich in a deep grooving Latin vein. Rich employs an open syncopated groove, which opens up the tune and leaves a lot of space in the music. The music has an assured confidence and allows Luis Sanchez on Hammond B3 to open up and play a very tasty solo outing. Spremich chops and cuts at the rhythm using some very interesting drum fills to keep the groove percolating.

Tremble is a ballad with muted trumpet opening and an atmospheric production. The song softly breaks into a smooth double time lope towards the end replete with Fender Rhodes style piano rippling, again featuring Luis Sanchez.
Jesus In The House is a straight-ahead piece of joyous funk interjected with Albert Sandoval’s carousing guitar, while bringing a Biblical lesson for the people. Yahweh ensues and is
up tempo with a nice bass driven gospelly feel, it again hints at the early glories of Malo’s debut album, with unison harmony guitar lines and its unmistakable joyous West Coast feel. It also features a nice rumbling timbale and conga solo from Paulie Lopez.

Never Will I say Goodbye plays like a blues with Larry Nobel burning on a fervent guitar intro. Tony Martinez supplies a heart felt vocal.
Devil’s A Liar reminds very much of a sixties Stax recording in the vein of Sam and Dave or Otis Redding with its strong soul theme and vocals. Great horns bolster the funky soul vibe with nice drum fills by Rich Spremich. The vocals are nice and dry and it continues the cool production values of the recording.Fall In Love Again is a sweet soulful sound and ends this disc on a suitably spiritually uplifting mood. A song of ensuing hope and of spiritual liberation. It also features a beautiful Santana-esque guitar thematic.

This is a solid, soul-filled piece of work with respectful nods to Spremich’s former allegiance to the first Malo band. And a definitely special addition to both Believers and / or Latin lovers
music collections.

Tags: Jim Mc Carthy, Jim McCarthy, Latin Rock, Malo, Voices of Latin Rock

Jim McCarthy
Has a new web site
Offering a different form of present.
Please take a look around and bookmark me!! YourCartoons!
Thanks……….Jim

Tags: Jim Mc Carthy, Jim McCarthy, Jimbo, JimMcCarthy

CD Review:
Michael Shrieve’s Spellbinder- Live at ToST.

Music ripples from one musician to another, like jungle drums, the architecture of music is disseminated against the current and the music passed on but not over. The true musician is a servant of all he has been and heard and seeks to develop his craft within these walls and also to break down these walls.
Within a drummer like Michael Shrieve, lies a host of influences, the personalities and names are revelatory, Elvin Jones, Jack DeJohnette, Chico Hamilton, Papa Jo Jones, Buddy Rich, on the funkier tip, see Mike Clark, Bernard Purdie, David Garibaldi, Dennis Chambers, Stubblefield, Jabo Starks and others who have played in James Brown‘s bands and for Latino there is Mike Carabello, Chepito Areas, Armando Peraza, the list is endless, a veritable who’s-who of American and world drummers, that all serve to become a melting pot, upon which Shrieve has modelled and built his craft.

For pointers to “Spellbinder” and musical cross-referencing, seek out the mystical “Sangam” by saxophonist Charles Lloyd (released on ECM in 2006 and meaning flowing union or confluence). It is a live dedication to the late drummer Billy Higgins. It features the tasteful hand percussion and drumming of Zakir Hussein and Eric Harland and on some of the tom-tom work, both Harland and Shrieve could be calling to each other across different recordings. Drummers as “sound seekers” as Charles Lloyd would put it. Dreaming dreams that are far more uplifting than the world’s problems.

Michael Shrieve has been a totemic presence in modern American music for nearly four decades. From his early groundbreaking work with the Santana band, with whom he worked up until the Borboletta recording in 1974, to further projects encapsulating the commercial (Automatic Man, Novo Combo, Mick Jagger solo, Abraxas Pool) to more below-the-radar work both live and in the studio.

Since then his work has been plentiful, both mainstream and the more difficult to find. Perhaps, of all the original Santana members he has dedicated himself to a more esoteric search for musical meaning and exploration. His latest release is culled from a live recording made in February 2008, during his group Spellbinder’s, Monday night residency at ToST in Seattle, Washington, nearby to where Michael resides currently. Spellbinder is the second combo Shrieve has formed since his residence in Seattle. Tangletown was the other group, which had (although unreleased) great potential, if the recordings “African Woman, “Baila Mi Cha Cha,” “Natasha,” and “One” are anything to go by. Tangletown were the nearest thing to a Santana world band style, Shrieve has attempted outside of Abraxas Pool.

The Spellbinder CD itself is missing the “title” track, which gives the group its name and inspiration, simply called “Spellbinder.” From the same-titled recording by Gabor Szabo, who was based in San Francisco’s Bay Area at the time and released in 1966 on the Verve label, it featured the Hungarian Szabo’s brilliant guitar flurries, over the percussion team of Willie Bobo and Victor Pantoja on drums/timbales and congas respectively.
This recording also featured “Gypsy Queen,” which was an integral part of Santana’s Abraxas first side suite, as a coda to “Black Magic Woman.” This live cut has been up on You Tube from Shrieve’s band but doesn’t appear on the live recording.

Shrieve tells of Gabor’s influence on the young Santana, “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.” Michael Carabello was very influenced by Victor Pantoja, who played congas on that record. Well, obviously, I named my new group Spellbinder and we play that song too!”

Shrieve comments, “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 song and 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.”

The CD is served by a rich and ambient sound. It is I feel, a piece that works best listened to and not accompanied by the live video shots that have appeared on You Tube. It is an atmospheric collection of seven tracks, which starts with Shrieve looking to his Santana back catalogue for the opening cut, “Every Step Of The Way”. Every Step features the sweeping Hammond B3 organ vamps from Joe Doria that Gregg Rolie previously added to the first version on Caravanserai but also features strong, delirious and keening playing by the guitarist Danny Godinez who follows some of Carlos’ earlier licks but also introduces new and fresh playing of his own. Shrieve plays ride cymbal with the deftness and fluency, he is renowned for but here his playing is softer and with less attack than his “Two Doors” or “Octave Of The Holy Innocents” with Jonas Hellborg recordings of fifteen years ago. “Every Step Of the Way” is extremely atmospheric with superb playing and organ washes from Doria. Shrieve starts the piece with brushes and moves to sticks during the intro section before the main theme. The band take their time to hit the theme with Doria supplying a pumping solo and taking the music further into the ozone is trumpeter John Fricke. All this music is underpinned by the group’s bassist who hails from Uzbekistan, yet another Seattle resident, Farko Dosumov. Spellbinder completists, please note this is a different take to the postings on You Tube.

The CD recording is rich, warm and fans of Shrieve’s drums will not be disappointed at the depth of sound on the kit and the clarity of the cymbal work.

The tune “Flamingo” composed by Danny Godinez appears next and opens with tasty melodic runs from Godinez, before breaking into a funky vamp from the guitarist. The tune is notable for a powerful main theme, which is very catchy, punchy and rousing, really hitting home.
Mike Shrieve plays in a Latinesque vibe, starting out with a crisp hi-hat rhythm before breaking into a rolling cymbal and snare beat. It also features some creamy cliff-hanging Shrieve double stroke rolls on the snare, which are a Shrieve trademark! Doria’s Hammond organ stabs and waves of sound ably punctuate Godinez’s excellent guitar solo. This piece also features out-there trumpet by Fricke who here, brings his solo down into a heavily swinging, muted wah-wah excursion.

Shrieve shows off his deftness as a drum roll player at the beginning of the next piece before leading with a crisp drum roll into the main body of “Moon Over You,” taken from Shrieve’s excellent Stiletto recording, originally released on Novus Records in 1989. Shrieve’s clattering, assured and confident drum poly-pattern with the snares off is a hypnotic and enticing romp through a spacey, Miles Davis-like refrain with a retro Wild Western feel. The piece explodes into a double time part with a manic guitar solo from Godinez, in which he almost goes off the highest register on his instrument. Here the music is a call to Shrieve’s Santana past. Shrieve amplifies this connection by indulging in some razor sharp snare and tom fills that slice through the music and threaten to pull everything apart until Shrieve resolves the time by coming back on the one.

Of further interest here to Santana fans, is a new version of “Jungle Strut,” the Gene Ammons penned vehicle that Shrieve brought to the Santana 3 sessions. It follows the Third album version fairly closely,
both in tempo, arrangement and feel. Shrieve also played this live a few years back with old band mate Jose “Chepito” Areas at a New Monsoon gig at Martyrs, Chicago. Godinez blazes here both adopting both the Neal Schon wah-wah and Carlos guitar parts. Added trumpet flourishes make this a live pressure cooker.

Opening with Shrieve drumming in thunderous tom-tom cascades, with a fugue-like organ from Doria, “Gole Sangem” is a sombre, meditative piece of this set that feels close to the aforementioned “Sangam” by Charles Lloyd. Shrieve started to develop this style of cascading tom-tom fills as far back as Welcome and Borboletta, where tracks like “Life Is Anew” ended with Shrieve using this technique to full dramatic effect, before segueing into the 6/8 funk of “Give And Take” on the Borboletta recording. “Gole Sangem” is a stately walk through lyrical trumpet and guitar flourishes over a deep, penetrating almost funereal rhythm.

“Inside Four Walls’ follows, again featuring a dramatic intro
and chanted vocals or voicing with no lyrics, before moving into “They Love Me from Fifteen Feet Away.” A beautiful fretless bass intro ensues from Farko Dosumov, this is further taken up by Fricke’s trumpet and Godinez’s benevolent, tasteful, bluesy, soaring guitar. This is a superb, electrifying solo from Danny Godinez.
One is waiting for Shrieve to pile on the pressure on the drum kit but he pulls back with his open use of space, creating further tension by keeping the rhythm open and allowing a large soundscape to emerge by not bringing in further backbeat. As drummer with Santana etc, Shrieve always let the music breathe and other soloists or percussionists always had plenty of room to manoeuvre with Shrieve at the drum helm. An impressive Spanish style number to round out this live recording that enjoys clarity of both sound and group dynamics.
From Go, through to Automatic Man, Tangletown, Novo Combo, Abraxas Pool and the Stiletto, Two Doors, Fascination recordings, Shrieve always seems to have the ability to pursue a completely original take on new bands. He also changed or adapted his drum styles accordingly and this CD is no exception.

Total CD Time = 54.80

To round out this review, I asked Michael Shrieve some further Spellbinder related questions……..

(1) At your ToST residency, do you play the same set every week, or is their lots of other material??
Basically we play the same set, but are adding new tunes now. We play “Knives Out” by Radiohead and this works extremely well in our band context. Rhythmically it’s right up my alley and the melody adapts beautifully on the trumpet. We are also working up a few tunes from some of my other solo CD’s as well, right now one each from Two Doors, Fascination, and Stiletto as well.

(2) Why no Spellbinder cut on the CD??
We recorded “Spellbinder” several times but it was always too fast, which is of course my fault! If it’s too fast it sounds hokey and corny musically. The rhythm sounds good fast, but not the music.

(3) It’s a fairly “short” recording, with say 20 minutes left of CD space – why not more music??
It is what it is. I also happen to believe that just because there’s more time available on the CD format, it doesn’t mean you have to fill it. Keep in mind that most of the classic records were around 44:00 minutes. The reason for this is that while cutting vinyl, the most time that you could have on each side of the record was about 22:00 minutes because after that the sound quality suffered. The actual grooves that were cut in the vinyl became not as deep after that amount of time and the sound became thinner.

(4) What is the track “Gole Sangem” about??
Who did it originally??
Gole Sangem or Sangam, there is some question as to the right spelling, is a traditional Persian song that I first encountered while producing a group called The Brothers Baladi. On that recording we used a soprano saxophone for the melody and presented in a way that sounded like Ennio Morricone. I always loved the melody and wanted to do it if the right situation presented itself. With Spellbinder I really wanted to present beautiful melodies as well as “spellbinding” grooves. Ironically, and you can imagine my surprise, when I found out just before the CD was released, Gole Sangem translates to “The Stone Flower” or “the flower that can only bloom from the stone”, because I wrote lyrics to Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Stone Flower” and we recorded that song on Santana’s “Caravanserai” 35 years earlier!

(5) “Inside 4 Walls,” who is doing the wailing singing??
Again- why this choice??
“Inside Four Walls” was written by the jazz bass player Marc Johnson and was included on his CD called “Right Brain Patrol”. Again, I’ve always enjoyed this song and the vocal is done in a similar fashion on Marc’s recording and I believe the percussionist on the recording, Arto Tunçboyaciyan, sang that section. The song that comes after it, “They Love Me Fifteen Feet Away” was also on that same recording and was written by Arto as well. I just always liked them and wanted to play them. I’m a big believer in just playing music that you just really like, no matter where it comes from.

(6) They Love me” why this choice by Marc Johnson??
Who is he???
See above.

(7) What would you like to achieve with Spellbinder and what are the future plans??
I want to take Spellbinder on the road and play for as many people as possible, and continue making records with the group. That’s the plan.

You are directed here to an excellent and extensive article by Michael Shrieve himself on the Moonflower Café website, which is both in-depth and entertaining.

http://www.moonflowercafe.com/mcshrieve.html

Tags: Jim Mc Carthy, latin muisc, Live at ToST, Michael Shrieve, Santana, Spellbinder

CD Review:
Michael Shrieve’s Spellbinder- Live at ToST.

Music ripples from one musician to another, like jungle drums, the architecture of music is disseminated against the current and the music passed on but not over. The true musician is a servant of all he has been and heard and seeks to develop his craft within these walls and also to break down these walls.
Within a drummer like Michael Shrieve, lies a host of influences, the personalities and names are revelatory, Elvin Jones, Jack DeJohnette, Chico Hamilton, Papa Jo Jones, Buddy Rich, on the funkier tip, see Mike Clark, Bernard Purdie, David Garibaldi, Dennis Chambers, Stubblefield, Jabo Starks and others who have played in James Brown‘s bands and for Latino there is Mike Carabello, Chepito Areas, Armando Peraza, the list is endless, a veritable who’s-who of American and world drummers, that all serve to become a melting pot, upon which Shrieve has modelled and built his craft.

For pointers to “Spellbinder” and musical cross-referencing, seek out the mystical “Sangam” by saxophonist Charles Lloyd (released on ECM in 2006 and meaning flowing union or confluence). It is a live dedication to the late drummer Billy Higgins. It features the tasteful hand percussion and drumming of Zakir Hussein and Eric Harland and on some of the tom-tom work, both Harland and Shrieve could be calling to each other across different recordings. Drummers as “sound seekers” as Charles Lloyd would put it. Dreaming dreams that are far more uplifting than the world’s problems.

Michael Shrieve has been a totemic presence in modern American music for nearly four decades. From his early groundbreaking work with the Santana band, with whom he worked up until the Borboletta recording in 1974, to further projects encapsulating the commercial (Automatic Man, Novo Combo, Mick Jagger solo, Abraxas Pool) to more below-the-radar work both live and in the studio.

Since then his work has been plentiful, both mainstream and the more difficult to find. Perhaps, of all the original Santana members he has dedicated himself to a more esoteric search for musical meaning and exploration. His latest release is culled from a live recording made in February 2008, during his group Spellbinder’s, Monday night residency at ToST in Seattle, Washington, nearby to where Michael resides currently. Spellbinder is the second combo Shrieve has formed since his residence in Seattle. Tangletown was the other group, which had (although unreleased) great potential, if the recordings “African Woman, “Baila Mi Cha Cha,” “Natasha,” and “One” are anything to go by. Tangletown were the nearest thing to a Santana world band style, Shrieve has attempted outside of Abraxas Pool.

The Spellbinder CD itself is missing the “title” track, which gives the group its name and inspiration, simply called “Spellbinder.” From the same-titled recording by Gabor Szabo, who was based in San Francisco’s Bay Area at the time and released in 1966 on the Verve label, it featured the Hungarian Szabo’s brilliant guitar flurries, over the percussion team of Willie Bobo and Victor Pantoja on drums/timbales and congas respectively.
This recording also featured “Gypsy Queen,” which was an integral part of Santana’s Abraxas first side suite, as a coda to “Black Magic Woman.” This live cut has been up on You Tube from Shrieve’s band but doesn’t appear on the live recording.

Shrieve tells of Gabor’s influence on the young Santana, “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.” Michael Carabello was very influenced by Victor Pantoja, who played congas on that record. Well, obviously, I named my new group Spellbinder and we play that song too!”

Shrieve comments, “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 song and 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.”

The CD is served by a rich and ambient sound. It is I feel, a piece that works best listened to and not accompanied by the live video shots that have appeared on You Tube. It is an atmospheric collection of seven tracks, which starts with Shrieve looking to his Santana back catalogue for the opening cut, “Every Step Of The Way”. Every Step features the sweeping Hammond B3 organ vamps from Joe Doria that Gregg Rolie previously added to the first version on Caravanserai but also features strong, delirious and keening playing by the guitarist Danny Godinez who follows some of Carlos’ earlier licks but also introduces new and fresh playing of his own. Shrieve plays ride cymbal with the deftness and fluency, he is renowned for but here his playing is softer and with less attack than his “Two Doors” or “Octave Of The Holy Innocents” with Jonas Hellborg recordings of fifteen years ago. “Every Step Of the Way” is extremely atmospheric with superb playing and organ washes from Doria. Shrieve starts the piece with brushes and moves to sticks during the intro section before the main theme. The band take their time to hit the theme with Doria supplying a pumping solo and taking the music further into the ozone is trumpeter John Fricke. All this music is underpinned by the group’s bassist who hails from Uzbekistan, yet another Seattle resident, Farko Dosumov. Spellbinder completists, please note this is a different take to the postings on You Tube.

The CD recording is rich, warm and fans of Shrieve’s drums will not be disappointed at the depth of sound on the kit and the clarity of the cymbal work.

The tune “Flamingo” composed by Danny Godinez appears next and opens with tasty melodic runs from Godinez, before breaking into a funky vamp from the guitarist. The tune is notable for a powerful main theme, which is very catchy, punchy and rousing, really hitting home.
Mike Shrieve plays in a Latinesque vibe, starting out with a crisp hi-hat rhythm before breaking into a rolling cymbal and snare beat. It also features some creamy cliff-hanging Shrieve double stroke rolls on the snare, which are a Shrieve trademark! Doria’s Hammond organ stabs and waves of sound ably punctuate Godinez’s excellent guitar solo. This piece also features out-there trumpet by Fricke who here, brings his solo down into a heavily swinging, muted wah-wah excursion.

Shrieve shows off his deftness as a drum roll player at the beginning of the next piece before leading with a crisp drum roll into the main body of “Moon Over You,” taken from Shrieve’s excellent Stiletto recording, originally released on Novus Records in 1989. Shrieve’s clattering, assured and confident drum poly-pattern with the snares off is a hypnotic and enticing romp through a spacey, Miles Davis-like refrain with a retro Wild Western feel. The piece explodes into a double time part with a manic guitar solo from Godinez, in which he almost goes off the highest register on his instrument. Here the music is a call to Shrieve’s Santana past. Shrieve amplifies this connection by indulging in some razor sharp snare and tom fills that slice through the music and threaten to pull everything apart until Shrieve resolves the time by coming back on the one.

Of further interest here to Santana fans, is a new version of “Jungle Strut,” the Gene Ammons penned vehicle that Shrieve brought to the Santana 3 sessions. It follows the Third album version fairly closely,
both in tempo, arrangement and feel. Shrieve also played this live a few years back with old band mate Jose “Chepito” Areas at a New Monsoon gig at Martyrs, Chicago. Godinez blazes here both adopting both the Neal Schon wah-wah and Carlos guitar parts. Added trumpet flourishes make this a live pressure cooker.

Opening with Shrieve drumming in thunderous tom-tom cascades, with a fugue-like organ from Doria, “Gole Sangem” is a sombre, meditative piece of this set that feels close to the aforementioned “Sangam” by Charles Lloyd. Shrieve started to develop this style of cascading tom-tom fills as far back as Welcome and Borboletta, where tracks like “Life Is Anew” ended with Shrieve using this technique to full dramatic effect, before segueing into the 6/8 funk of “Give And Take” on the Borboletta recording. “Gole Sangem” is a stately walk through lyrical trumpet and guitar flourishes over a deep, penetrating almost funereal rhythm.

“Inside Four Walls’ follows, again featuring a dramatic intro
and chanted vocals or voicing with no lyrics, before moving into “They Love Me from Fifteen Feet Away.” A beautiful fretless bass intro ensues from Farko Dosumov, this is further taken up by Fricke’s trumpet and Godinez’s benevolent, tasteful, bluesy, soaring guitar. This is a superb, electrifying solo from Danny Godinez.
One is waiting for Shrieve to pile on the pressure on the drum kit but he pulls back with his open use of space, creating further tension by keeping the rhythm open and allowing a large soundscape to emerge by not bringing in further backbeat. As drummer with Santana etc, Shrieve always let the music breathe and other soloists or percussionists always had plenty of room to manoeuvre with Shrieve at the drum helm. An impressive Spanish style number to round out this live recording that enjoys clarity of both sound and group dynamics.
From Go, through to Automatic Man, Tangletown, Novo Combo, Abraxas Pool and the Stiletto, Two Doors, Fascination recordings, Shrieve always seems to have the ability to pursue a completely original take on new bands. He also changed or adapted his drum styles accordingly and this CD is no exception.

Total CD Time = 54.80

To round out this review, I asked Michael Shrieve some further Spellbinder related questions……..

(1) At your ToST residency, do you play the same set every week, or is their lots of other material??
Basically we play the same set, but are adding new tunes now. We play “Knives Out” by Radiohead and this works extremely well in our band context. Rhythmically it’s right up my alley and the melody adapts beautifully on the trumpet. We are also working up a few tunes from some of my other solo CD’s as well, right now one each from Two Doors, Fascination, and Stiletto as well.

(2) Why no Spellbinder cut on the CD??
We recorded “Spellbinder” several times but it was always too fast, which is of course my fault! If it’s too fast it sounds hokey and corny musically. The rhythm sounds good fast, but not the music.

(3) It’s a fairly “short” recording, with say 20 minutes left of CD space – why not more music??
It is what it is. I also happen to believe that just because there’s more time available on the CD format, it doesn’t mean you have to fill it. Keep in mind that most of the classic records were around 44:00 minutes. The reason for this is that while cutting vinyl, the most time that you could have on each side of the record was about 22:00 minutes because after that the sound quality suffered. The actual grooves that were cut in the vinyl became not as deep after that amount of time and the sound became thinner.

(4) What is the track “Gole Sangem” about??
Who did it originally??
Gole Sangem or Sangam, there is some question as to the right spelling, is a traditional Persian song that I first encountered while producing a group called The Brothers Baladi. On that recording we used a soprano saxophone for the melody and presented in a way that sounded like Ennio Morricone. I always loved the melody and wanted to do it if the right situation presented itself. With Spellbinder I really wanted to present beautiful melodies as well as “spellbinding” grooves. Ironically, and you can imagine my surprise, when I found out just before the CD was released, Gole Sangem translates to “The Stone Flower” or “the flower that can only bloom from the stone”, because I wrote lyrics to Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Stone Flower” and we recorded that song on Santana’s “Caravanserai” 35 years earlier!

(5) “Inside 4 Walls,” who is doing the wailing singing??
Again- why this choice??
“Inside Four Walls” was written by the jazz bass player Marc Johnson and was included on his CD called “Right Brain Patrol”. Again, I’ve always enjoyed this song and the vocal is done in a similar fashion on Marc’s recording and I believe the percussionist on the recording, Arto Tunçboyaciyan, sang that section. The song that comes after it, “They Love Me Fifteen Feet Away” was also on that same recording and was written by Arto as well. I just always liked them and wanted to play them. I’m a big believer in just playing music that you just really like, no matter where it comes from.

(6) They Love me” why this choice by Marc Johnson??
Who is he???
See above.

(7) What would you like to achieve with Spellbinder and what are the future plans??
I want to take Spellbinder on the road and play for as many people as possible, and continue making records with the group. That’s the plan.

You are directed here to an excellent and extensive article by Michael Shrieve himself on the Moonflower Café website, which is both in-depth and entertaining.

http://www.moonflowercafe.com/mcshrieve.html

Tags: Chepito Areas, Jim Mc Carthy, latin muisc, Michael Shrieve, Santana, Seattle, Spellbinder, Victor Pantoja, Voices of Latin Rock, Willie Bobo