SANTANA — Borboletta (review)

SANTANA — Borboletta album cover Album · 1974 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
This album is unfortunately too often over looked, but represents yet another highlight in the group’s discography and a shot at equalling (but not really close) Caravanserai’s perfection. Named (I think) on a rare blue Central American butterfly (the background shot is a close-up of its wing’s structure), this album is all too discreet for its own good.

Starting on the same birdsong and sheep herd landscapes than its inspiration (but written by jazz-rock great Airto Moreira), you just know you will be in for another superb Santana ride as right after the intro, the first few mid-eastern scales of Canto De Flores directly lead you to heaven. As usual with Santana albums, happiness radiates from every pore of the vinyl record groove and Life Is Anew and Give And Take (both sung and hyper positive) are some of the better sung jazz-rock (I am usually not really a fan of that “thing”), and the vocals do help setting its own feel as opposed to its inspiration. On a lesser level, One With The Sun, while still lovely, is maybe one sung-track too many in a row, but I might be just a bit over-nitpicky. Aspirations quickly repairs this slight flaw with its splendidly cosmic calmness. After the great Practice What You Preach instrumental, one more sung tracks (I must say that Leon Patillo’s voice is quite pleasing) the excellent Mirage, the impressive Here and Now is quite a departure from what Santana had us used to and segues into the highly fusional Flor De Canela, before the album climaxes in the lengthy Promise Of A Fisherman, which is not lying in its promise to the listener: although nothing never heard before, we are dealing with one of the last truly great lengthy Santana instrumental here. The closing Airto Moreira-penned track is rather anecdotical, but does close the album in the same intriguing manner it openned.

One of the thngs that differentiates this album from the ultimacy (if you’ll allow the creation of a new word for that album) of Caravanserai is Greg Rollie’s absence >> both his organs and his voice are aptly replaced and almost equalled. But really, this album has very few to envy to it either.
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