Sean Trane
Recorded live in a single concert, this album was a one-shot collaboration between Buddy Miles and Santana (who did not bring his own band, but rather pieces of it: by 72 the original group was disintegrating) and the two stars did a selection of their tracks. This album is reputed for being patchy and over-indulgent, and the least that can be said is that its reputation is not usurped.
Not well recorded, of limited interest to fans of both Carlos and Buddy, the real reasons for releasing this album remain clouded-over. After a shoddy McLaughlin-penned Marbles, the group gets lost in a bunch of semi-soul music where Buddy struts his stuff and Carlos enhances them, but when it is time to reciprocate on Evil Ways, Buddy’s voice is not cutting it and they play way too fast: this is almost shameful compared to the original. For the occasion of the concert, two tracks were written by both of them, the very short Faith Interlude and the overlong almost 25-min FFFF. The track is obviously a bit on an improvisation, but it is rather built up even if it starts in an atonal cacophony. But over the course of the track, both groups manage to find a common ground and a complicity that makes you believe that music is indeed something special as a mean of communion. However inexplicably with the Cd format, the full version was not restored and we get the exact same fade-out as we did (understandably so) with the vinyl. The least would’ve been to find the rest of the track.
Definitely not essential and not even really good, the album does deserve a spin at least once, just for the sake of it.