Hymns For Peace:
Live At Montreux 2004
Santana
On July 15, 2004, Carlos Santana took to the stage at the Montreux Jazz Festival
to perform songs about peace and understanding dubbed Hymns For Peace.
Joining the guitarist were Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Wayne
Shorter, Ravi Coltrane and Idrissa Diop with additional guest appearances throughout
the night from Angelique Kidjo, Barbara Morrison, Patti Austin, Sylver Sharp,
Steve Winwood and Nile Rodgers. Hymns For Peace: Live At Montreux 2004
is a two-DVD set documenting the event, shimmering and gliding like a huge and
elegant spacecraft preparing to set down on a friendly and festive landscape.
After a few minutes of introductions, Carlos Santana, the New Santana Band
(aka NSB), and an honor roll of special friends explore the ether regions of
African rhythms absorbed in a polyphasic ménage of jazz, world and some
flavoring of Tropicalia. Slipping into “Afro Blue,” Mongo Santamaria’s
Latin jazz classic popularized by John Coltrane. it’s especially poignant
to hear Ravi Coltrane interpret his father's lyrical, loopy lines while Santana
and Wayne Shorter took their cues.
To somehow validate the cause, Santana and company cover songs by spiritual
avatars like Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis
and John Lennon. At times, the gaggle of singers and instrumentalists overwhelm
some of the songs' simple arrangements. Dylan’s “Blowin’ In
The Wind” aptly segues into Wonder’s “A Place In The Sun,”
and the lazy and lofty swing of Gaye’s “What’s Goin’
On” is tastefully spearheaded by the compelling vocals of Barbara Morrison,
Patti Austin, Angelique Kidjo, and Sylver Logan Sharp. But it's on the second
disc that the Montreux stage starts to levitate between moments of brilliance
and over saturation.
Stevie Winwood digs his heels in on “Why Can't We Live Together,”
Santana and McLaughlin become one for “Let Us Go Into The House of The
Lord,” and the enitre group rip relentlessly through a patch of Davis'
" In A Silent Way" — three major reasons to watch this disc.
Unfortunately, the circus rolls into town during Coltrane's “A Love Supreme”
and Lennon’s “Imagine,” and the presentation comes off as
callous and unnecessarily overblown. But you gotta give an "A" for
effort here. Santana’s eclectic choice of artists and music, rallied together
for a noble cause, more than make up for the set’s shortcomings. After
all, the spiritual treasures of music work in ways only higher powers can understand.
~ Shawn Perry
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