Top players include Stanley Clarke, Airto, Flora Purim and Michael Shrieve.
This is definitely not an album of “hits,” nor is it trying to be one. The lengthy review in Rolling Stone explains it all, and is certainly worth a read if jazz-rock fusion is your thing.
This is an Older Review.
Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.
We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)
We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.
Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.
As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.
The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.
The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.
Further Reading
Rolling Stone Rave Review Excerpts (1978)
As Carlos Santana evolves musically and spiritually — for the time being the two paths seem to be one — he chooses his associates more carefully. The demands of the music he conceives are dictating his personnel and the Santana band has become, for recording purposes, an aegis under which various players perform.
The entirely instrumental Illuminations is Carlos’s most ambitious project to date. And it is very much his: Alice Coltrane provided string arrangements and plays harp and keyboards but with the exception of her brief “Bliss: The Eternal Now” all the compositions are by Santana and Coster. Some of them tend toward the soporific with long atempo string passages and slow, blissed-out guitar melodies, but the sidemen and Turiya’s resourcefulness as an arranger inject enough fire to avoid tedium. The absence of a drum kit on most selections is compensated for by bassist Holland, who pushes and cajoles, emerging as the strong — man of the album.
For diehards, Santana’s Greatest Hits reprises obvious favorites from the first three Santana albums, “Evil Ways,” “Black Magic Woman” and all. This widely imitated music is magnificent rock, great for dancing or daydreaming, but as an instrumentalist and an organizer of musicians and material Carlos has surpassed it. Even when he’s unsure, as he is in parts of Borboletta and Illuminations, his determination to replace effects with substance and one-note riffing with meatier improvisations is refreshing. And “Angel of Sunlight,” “Here and Now,” “Flor de Canela” and “Promise of a Fisherman” are his best efforts thus far.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
Spring Manifestations (Sound Effects)
Canto De Los Flores
Life Is Anew
Give And Take
One With The Sun
Aspirations
Side Two
Practice What You Preach
Mirage
Here And Now
Flor De Canela
Promise Of A Fisherman
Borboletta
Background
Borboletta is the sixth studio album by Santana. It is one of his jazz-funk-fusion oriented albums, along with Caravanserai (1972), Welcome (1973), Love Devotion Surrender (1973) with John McLaughlin and Illuminations (1974) with Alice Coltrane, Jack DeJohnette and Jules Broussard.
The guitarist leaves a lot of room to percussion, saxophone and keyboards to set moods (“Spring Manifestations”), as well as lengthy solos by himself (“Promise of a Fisherman”) and vocals (“Give and Take”, a funky guitar-led song). The record was released in a shiny blue sleeve displaying a butterfly, an allusion to the album Butterfly Dreams (1973) by Brazilian musician Flora Purim and her husband Airto Moreira, whose contributions deeply influenced the sound of Borboletta. In Portuguese, borboleta means “butterfly”.
Wikipedia