El Chicano & Santana

[Cali]

A few years ago I watched a PBS special on salsa and latin music in America. Bill Graham was interviewed in this film and his story was told of how he was a big latin and latin-jazz fan when he lived in New York. He regularly went to the Palladium Ballroom and became such a good dancer that he won a series of big latin dance contests at the Palladium. With his winnings he moved to San Francisco and bought what we now know as the Fillmore Auditorium.

Originally, he wanted to make the Fillmore the west coast version of the N.Y. Palladium because of his love of latin music.

Now here is when it gets heavy. There was a struggling young blues guitarist named Carlos Santana that used to play at the Fillmore and Graham convinced him to try playing latin music. This was around 1967-68. Carlos put together a band that had elements of blues, jazz, R & B, afro-cuban, and rock. That band played Woodstock in 1969 and broke down all the conventions of rock as it was known then and became an overnight sensation. If you haven't seen the film try to get your hands on a copy and dig their electrifying performance of "Soul Sacrifice". There should be no explanation required after that.

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[The Magnificent Goldberg]

A few years ago I watched a PBS special on salsa and latin music in America. Bill Graham was interviewed in this film and his story was told of how he was a big latin and latin-jazz fan when he lived in New York. He regularly went to the Palladium Ballroom and became such a good dancer that he won a series of big latin dance contests at the Palladium. With his winnings he moved to San Francisco and bought what we now know as the Fillmore Auditorium.

Originally, he wanted to make the Fillmore the west coast version of the N.Y. Palladium because of his love of latin music.

Now here is when it gets heavy. There was a struggling young blues guitarist named Carlos Santana that used to play at the Fillmore and Graham convinced him to try playing latin music. This was around 1967-68. Carlos put together a band that had elements of blues, jazz, R & B, afro-cuban, and rock. That band played Woodstock in 1969 and broke down all the conventions of rock as it was known then and became an overnight sensation. If you haven't seen the film try to get your hands on a copy and dig their electrifying performance of "Soul Sacrifice". There should be no explanation required after that.

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Interesting story. Reminds me of Don Braden's album 'Organic', for which he had to LEARN soul jazz from Bob Porter. A polished example of how difficult it is to play a 'foreign' music - he didn't make it, partly because he wanted to make a soul jazz album with intelligence.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

No, I don't accept that definition of influence, as I tried to explain above. By the 20th Century (let alone in 2014), technologies such as record players allowed musicians to be influenced by recordings (or live concerts from visiting musicians from other places, via airplane travel or motor vehicles) from other places and cultures, via records, tapes, CD's, radio broadcasts, etc etc. Would it be preferable in many cases for a musician to be able to physically immerse themselves in the environment and culture of the artist they're attracted to? Would they be even more likely to be influenced significantly if they happened to live in that same environment? Is it cool when that happens? Of course. Is that common, or even a requirement for influence to occur? Of course it's not.

So, if I were to say 'You, guitarist, should be influenced by Barthelemy Attisso, because he's the world's greatest,' (he isn't, though he's very good indeed), you'd have to work like hell to even get to hear more than a small fraction of his work

Are you sure about that? Could it be that it would be easier for me to find his work than it was for you? Maybe MUCH easier? Ever shopped at an Amoeba Records? Have you ever listened to (for example) KKUP? It's becoming a smaller and smaller world, MG. 30 years ago, it would have been a huge advantage to live in NYC or Chicago or SF and surrounding areas, and I'm sure it still is to some degree, but that advantage is gradually dissipating, I think.

But we're talking about music that's over fifty years old

I suspect we understand different things by influence.

When I first visited West Africa, I met a guitarist/singer called Idrissa Cissokho and spent a few days in his and others' company. At one time he and I went into a bar in Banjul, Gambia. We had what we all thought was a very strange conversation with the barman - because between the three of us we didn't have a common language. The barman spoke English and Wolof, I spoke English and French, and Idrissa spoke Mandinke, Bambara, French, Arabic and Wolof. (Of course, it was a slow conversation, translations necessitating many beers ) I asked Idrissa how come he'd learned all those languages (most Africans don't speak more than three). Mandinke was the language of his home, as he and his parents were Mandinke, but they lived in a largely Bambara speaking area of Mali, so he absorbed Bambara, much as he'd absorbed Mandinke - it wasn't something he'd had to be taught, any more than we have to be taught English. He'd been taught French at school, as it's the colonial language, and Arabic at the Madrassa, then picked up Wolof when he was working on a construction site in Libya with a bunch of Wolof workers.

Now Idrissa not only absorbed the Mandinke and Bambara languages, but also Mandinke and Bambara music and was later able to work with Super Biton de Segou, one of the top Bambara bands of Mali (though its years of greatness were over by then). Music is a language, too, and some people can be bilingual or even multilingual in music just as they can be in languages. But I don't think it's from learning but from upbringing and no choice is involved. My point about Coltrane was that no one's brought up in a Coltrane environment because there's no such thing, nor even a free jazz environment. You have to make a conscious decision to get into it. It's not good or bad, it's just a different kind of thing.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thought I'd also try out Joe Baatan's 'Afrofilipino'.

Nothing much going on here, either.

MG

[JSngry]

Well, whatever environments of influences got learned on the way to this, seems like they were learned in a way that took them to heart.

Sounds good - and right -to me. And to the point that it created/synthesized/whatever an "environment" of its own, well, so it did.

[JSngry]

Also - once you hire/bring into your family/etc. Armando Peraza as more than just window dressing, that immediately puts you into a pretty deep environment right there.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Very nice rhythm section. Vocals a waste of time in my view.

'Song of the wind' was very good but for the rock guitar sound - I'd far rather hear Big Jay McNeely honking and screaming for an hour. Well, perhaps not precisely an hour, but I've never like the sound of rock guitars, whereas I do like the sound of a screaming tenor, even it it's not played as articulately as Santa's playing his guitar.

Thanks very much Jim. It's not the sort of thing I could stand to listen to over and over, and certainly not desirable enough for me to want to dig through dozens of cuts to find but, at least, I can see what people are on about.

Chalk one up for the Ministry of Education (Bev as well).

MG

[JSngry]

Suppose while I should quit while I'm kind of ahead but...

I can't really think of Santana's guitar sound as "rock"...even from the beginning. It's a pretty individual sound, really, with lots of personal elements in it (both technical and "flavor"). At one time widely imitated, but never duplcated, one of those type voices. To me, it's just Santana's sound, and it sounds organic in any number of "stylistic" settings.

Can't say that I'm one of those Santana-Til-I-Die guys, I'm not, not even close and I think he's become sincerely mushy-headed over the years, but still, the guy's gotten a lot more done with a lot more quality and integrity than many, many people in most any idiom, and you know me, I'll give Lifetime Achievement Props where I think they're due, and this is one of those cases.

Some people have a voice that is at once definitive of and wholly apart from whatever "genre" they're found in, and to me, Santana is one of those guys. His "content" may often be variable, but his "voice is pretty iconic, and not just in the lowest-common-denominator "pop" way.

Besides, this is his tune...

Whatever that is, I'm ok with it.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Oh well, I'm listening to Felix del Rosario now, so I'll have a listen tomorrow

Now Felix....

MG

[JSngry]

When exploring the Rosario section, don't overlook Willie. Cat always had a great band!

I adopted this as my mantra. It works.

[Jim R]

No, I don't accept that definition of influence, as I tried to explain above. By the 20th Century (let alone in 2014), technologies such as record players allowed musicians to be influenced by recordings (or live concerts from visiting musicians from other places, via airplane travel or motor vehicles) from other places and cultures, via records, tapes, CD's, radio broadcasts, etc etc. Would it be preferable in many cases for a musician to be able to physically immerse themselves in the environment and culture of the artist they're attracted to? Would they be even more likely to be influenced significantly if they happened to live in that same environment? Is it cool when that happens? Of course. Is that common, or even a requirement for influence to occur? Of course it's not.

So, if I were to say 'You, guitarist, should be influenced by Barthelemy Attisso, because he's the world's greatest,' (he isn't, though he's very good indeed), you'd have to work like hell to even get to hear more than a small fraction of his work

Are you sure about that? Could it be that it would be easier for me to find his work than it was for you? Maybe MUCH easier? Ever shopped at an Amoeba Records? Have you ever listened to (for example) KKUP? It's becoming a smaller and smaller world, MG. 30 years ago, it would have been a huge advantage to live in NYC or Chicago or SF and surrounding areas, and I'm sure it still is to some degree, but that advantage is gradually dissipating, I think.

But we're talking about music that's over fifty years old

I'm talking about having access to obscure music. 30 years ago (and longer) it would have been a bigger advantage to live near a major metropolitan area. Do you see? It's got nothing to do with how old the music is.

I suspect we understand different things by influence.

?

Music is a language, too, and some people can be bilingual or even multilingual in music just as they can be in languages. But I don't think it's from learning but from upbringing and no choice is involved. My point about Coltrane was that no one's brought up in a Coltrane environment because there's no such thing, nor even a free jazz environment.

There is no "Coltrane environment", obviously. He was one human being. He had HIS environment, and I suppose someone could refer to that as the "Coltrane environment", but that would be about as silly as saying that in order to be musically influenced by Willis Jackson, you would have to have been influenced by Willis Jackson's life. Oh wait... you actually said that...

"So an artist being influenced by Gator Tail isn't anything to do with his music, it's to do with the artist's life. On the other hand, being influenced by Coltrane isn't in anyone's general life background - simply because he's a genius and you have to study it to be in a position to accept the influence."

Not true. The more that one would need to "study" Coltrane, the less natural and unconscious the influence would be, but that doesn't mean that many players haven't absorbed a heavy influence from Trane without looking at transcriptions (I already mentioned that yesterday). Do you think that the enormous influence of a genius like Bird only resulted from serious "study" by everyone he influenced? Have you ever been a musician, MG? Are you aware that many jazz musicians (and quite a few greats) didn't and don't even read music?

"No such thing as a free jazz environment..." hmm... I think it could be argued that there is, but we'd all have to agree about the meaning of "environment". At any rate, I don't think it's all as simple and neatly organized as you seem to imagine in terms of musicians being influenced by other musicians based on each player's upbringing and physical "environment". That's an increasingly archaic concept, I would say. Artists from completely different backgrounds commonly come together and work together and share some of the same influences.

You have to make a conscious decision to get into it. It's not good or bad, it's just a different kind of thing.

MG

I'd still say you're wrong to use the phrase "conscious decision" and generalize that way with regard to musical influence. Edited October 23, 2014 by Jim R

[JSngry]

Speaking of a "Coltrane environment"...a whole lot of the Philly tenor players who came up with/around him have a certain quality to both their tone and time that is unique...people who know better than I say to give that credit to Jimmy Oliver. Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Bill Barron, who else...Bootsy Barnes from a later time, Odean Pope...there's a bunch of 'em. I thnk of it as more of a "regional accent" than an "individual environment" and that...opens up all kinds of options.

[Jim R]

No argument here with the phenomenon of regional accents (another connection between music and spoken language). My point about musical influence going beyond (WAY beyond) that sort of (more) direct regional influence is at the core of the "debate" here. Why wouldn't a musician like Carlos Santana be easily (unconsciously, naturally) influenced by an artist like Coltrane without any need for similar cultural upbringing/environment, regional proximity, or formal study?

I'm also still perplexed by the idea that musical influence must occur differently from a source like Willis Jackson vs a "genius" like Coltrane. It certainly could, depending on the who the person/player is who is being influenced, and how much of the source's style/sound is being absorbed and utilized, but in general I think this is a misguided notion.

[Jim R]

I rather like El Chicano. I was just listening to their second album, 'Revolucion'... and wondering, as there is quite a bit of stuff that sounds like rock...

(...snip...)

...As a general principle, I'm very out of sympathy with rock - didn't like it back in the day and can't be bothered to learn to like it now - got other music to learn to like

[JSngry]

I think the point is that there's a difference between first-person absorption and any number of degrees removed "influence". With that I cannot disagree, although I'm not sure if it's at all relevant to liking Santana or not the way it would be liking lab-band-jazz and other things that get learned in an entirely different way/place than the source. But even at that, having seen both side of that coin, I've come to recognize the validity of any group of sincere people coming together and creating a musical "value system" of their own, even if they get it "wrong" relative to the source. It's valid within itself, and no matter how creepy I myself think it is (or, sometimes, isn't), hey, people do shit like that all the time, it's just the nature of the bea(s)t. Everybody eventually finds their home, or dies trying.

I myself think that Santana's musics were, at one time (it's now kind of goofily self-referential, sometimes unfortunately self-parodical - see Supernatural - but people get old and they do that all the time as well, c'est la vie), a lot more of an organic synthesis of real-time absorptions than MG believed, and maybe still believes. Oh well, the guy speaks truly and deeply enough about enough other stuff that a disagreement like this will be grounds for a good discussion, but then, hey, back to reality and other assorted shit.

[JSngry]

Speaking of goofy...this DVD is goofy in the extreme, Wayne not afraid to play Rock Star, Carlos eager to play Humble Jazz Acolyte...but that's just the surface, the hook, the "image". Underneath it all, these motherfuckers are putting it out there for real (Armando Peraza FTW)...if more people took "show business" this seriously, hey...viable alternatives = fewer excuses, etc.

[Jim R]

I think the point is that there's a difference between first-person absorption and any number of degrees removed "influence". With that I cannot disagree, although I'm not sure if it's at all relevant to liking Santana or not the way it would be liking lab-band-jazz and other things that get learned in an entirely different way/place than the source. But even at that, having seen both side of that coin, I've come to recognize the validity of any group of sincere people coming together and creating a musical "value system" of their own, even if they get it "wrong" relative to the source. It's valid within itself, and no matter how creepy I myself think it is (or, sometimes, isn't), hey, people do shit like that all the time, it's just the nature of the bea(s)t. Everybody eventually finds their home, or dies trying.

[/quote

[JSngry]

[mr jazz]

I think the point is that there's a difference between first-person absorption and any number of degrees removed "influence". With that I cannot disagree, although I'm not sure if it's at all relevant to liking Santana or not the way it would be liking lab-band-jazz and other things that get learned in an entirely different way/place than the source. But even at that, having seen both side of that coin, I've come to recognize the validity of any group of sincere people coming together and creating a musical "value system" of their own, even if they get it "wrong" relative to the source. It's valid within itself, and no matter how creepy I myself think it is (or, sometimes, isn't), hey, people do shit like that all the time, it's just the nature of the bea(s)t. Everybody eventually finds their home, or dies trying.

[/quote

I guess I just wondered to what extent MG was dismissing the idea that Santana could have been (meaningfully) influenced by Coltrane. I think that he and I differ greatly on that. As I said, I see and understand the distinction between that scenario and first-person absorption (and appreciate the importance of the latter). When I asked MG is he was (ever) a musician, that was a sincere question, by the way. Seemed relevant to me. I don't do as much book reading as he does, so we're definitely different in more ways than one in terms of how we form opinions.

I really brought up the whole Santana-influenced-by-Trane thing just to challenge the rather narrow-minded (not to mention unfair) notion that Carlos is to be considered and labeled as yet another "rock" guitarist who plays "rock" guitar, and therefore ought to be kept on that "rock" shelf and not considered for more interesting recipes besides "rock" soup (sheesh, I must be getting hungry again).

[A Lark Ascending]

For me, Santana played some very exciting music in the early to mid-70s. After that he seemed to fit to what would sustain some degree of commercial success.

What has never altered is his unique tone - you can always tell him a mile off. Even though I don't care for the later records, I'm still drawn by the sound he gets from the guitar if not the arrangements he is playing. A great example of where he hits home is on Hooker's 'The Healer'.

In that respect he has the quality that draws me to a lot of players - Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz etc. A signature sound. I just don't feel he fully realised the possibilities - the aforementioned names had a great sound but then did other things with it.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well, I gave up listening to rock in '64, so I'm the LAST person to look for any sense on it. (Selling records next door to an art college in 1969 was kinda purgatory, you can guess.)

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

It's always about context - which is why I find attempts to assert the greatness or superiority of X, Y or Z so tiresome.

All sorts of things can influence that context - what we hear by chance, the directions we then choose to follow (either in response to what we've enjoyed, what we feel we 'ought' to be listening to or from a much colder perspective of 'I've just decided to follow this specific route').

My context was early 70s rock coloured by half absorbed music from my parents' record collection and radio tuning - crooners, show tunes, popular opera and classical nuggets. Very Western, very European.

Even before I started thinking about why I liked the music I did I knew repetition irritated me - so unlike you, soul music bored me and I had to work very hard at things like African music which seemed harmonically uninteresting. I've discovered other things to enjoy there - but it remains peripheral to my interests.

At heart I'm conditioned by Western tonality - the music I warm to most is goal orientated (in the harmonic sense) rather than cyclical.

An album like Caravanserais works for me because there is an enormous range of colour from track to track and a sense of movement across the album, almost a narrative. The album builds towards the final track, reaching early climaxes, then drawing back before moving on again.

But I can see why listening from a very different context would find the whole record totally uninteresting (as I find most funk records dull as ditch water).

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Very equable post, Bev.

I don't know what I'm conditioned to but maybe it goes way back - my earliest memory is singing along with my mother to 'Open the door, Richard', when I was three. Would that make any difference? Who could say? But I know that in the early fifties I thought that most of the pop music on the radio was crap - and I haven't changed my mind about all those Guy Mitchell etc records. Only thought that Johnnie Ray was great and later found out he was doing an Amos Milburn thing. And working in a black club in Detroit.

Then Fats Domino came along in '56 and I found proper music

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

I can recall sitting at my parents' dressing table in their bedroom doing my homework at 14 (the only place I could get any quiet) with Radio Luxembourg on c. 1970/71. I had no idea about how music was structured - but I remember being irritated by music where every verse/chorus repeated the previous one. 'Why don't they just vary it?' was going through my brain.

It's not a long jump from there to classical sonata or variation form or the variation form that dominates much jazz. I had absolutely no formal musical training - it was all instinct. But I suspect a lot of my preferences were subconsciously absorbed from my parents' collection.

There was a lot of Rogers and Hammerstein there - I can hear the links to a lot of the Late Romantic classical music I enjoy there.

Earlier in the year I came across a loose leaf book my father kept of records we'd had taped. In Singapore in the mid 60s you could go to a market stall, pick out a dozen LPs and they'd stick them on a long reel-to-reel tape for the following week (The Original Andorrans). Tapes ran from Wagner to Frank Sinatra to Danny Kaye singing the Ugly Duckling to Mario Lanza. And those recordings were on constantly from the age of 9 until about 12. Even though I did the obnoxious teenager thing of rejecting it in my teens, it took root.

When I bought my first Miles Davis records, I knew the tunes!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I can recall sitting at my parents' dressing table in their bedroom doing my homework at 14 (the only place I could get any quiet) with Radio Luxembourg on c. 1970/71. I had no idea about how music was structured - but I remember being irritated by music where every verse/chorus repeated the previous one. 'Why don't they just vary it?' was going through my brain.

It's not a long jump from there to classical sonata or variation form or the variation form that dominates much jazz. I had absolutely no formal musical training - it was all instinct. But I suspect a lot of my preferences were subconsciously absorbed from my parents' collection.

There was a lot of Rogers and Hammerstein there - I can hear the links to a lot of the Late Romantic classical music I enjoy there.

Earlier in the year I came across a loose leaf book my father kept of records we'd had taped. In Singapore in the mid 60s you could go to a market stall, pick out a dozen LPs and they'd stick them on a long reel-to-reel tape for the following week (The Original Andorrans). Tapes ran from Wagner to Frank Sinatra to Danny Kaye singing the Ugly Duckling to Mario Lanza. And those recordings were on constantly from the age of 9 until about 12. Even though I did the obnoxious teenager thing of rejecting it in my teens, it took root.

When I bought my first Miles Davis records, I knew the tunes!

Funny, all your parents' music was of the repetitive kind... Well, now Wagner.

MG