Borboletta cover

Borboletta

Released

Beginning with 1972’s Caravanserai and followed by Welcome and Love Devotion Surrender, both featuring guest guitar from John McLaughlin, the triple live album Lotus and the Alice Coltrane collaboration Illuminations, Carlos Santana went on a spiritual jazz-rock journey for several years, derailing his career commercially while making the most beautiful and ambitious music of his career. Borboletta, released in 1974, marks the end of this phase; it features plenty of spacy, almost ambient jams and guest vocals from Flora Purim (plus percussion from her husband, Airto Moreira). Jazz-funk bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Leon “Ndugu” Chancler, who’d played with Miles Davis in 1971 before joining Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi, also appear. There are some hard-rocking and funky moments (“Give And Take”), but a lot of this album is closer in spirit to Weather Report or In A Silent Way than Abraxas.

Phil Freeman

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