Santana Reunites With Lost Percusionist

Carlos Santana reunited with drummer after finding out he was homeless for 40 years

I've been a Santana fan since I heard "Soul Sacrifice" on my dad's vinyl copy of the Woodstock Soundtrack.
This guy wasn't there for that mind blowing performance that you can see here...:

...but he is credited as one of the writers of the song, and is no doubt an important part of the original band.
I have a two cd set of the original Santana Blues Band playing at the Fillmore in 1968 which features Malone on the congas.
Good to see Carlos hooking up with his old buddy. This generation of musicians is fading away quickly and will be gone before you know it. Their music and the stories, legacies of this golden age of pop and rock music needs to be preserved. None of these cats should be out on the street. Can't wait to hear the album they are planning to do!

reply to post by ItCameFromOuterSpace


Thanks for the tip. Nice to see the old timers still kicking it. Right you are about the golden age of pop/rock as well. With this older generation the art form will die with it. Music is fleeting and most people have no idea how to listen to it. This means that musical taste today is determined by theatrics and popularity and cross promotion. J.S. Bach, Mozart and Beethoven composed the most stunningly beautiful music this age has seen and their efforts were expounded on for hundreds of years before mankind decided that the composer and the symphony was antiquated and that progress should stop for preservation of history. Symphony directors are glorified librarians now.

The ink was still wet on the last works of Strauss, Wagner and Shostakovich when the west fell in love with the new twentieth century innovations in harmony which we know as jazz today. Jazz enjoyed its time in the sun for nearly fifty years before the decision was made to halt progress in it and preserve it alongside classical music. The tireless search of the titans of jazz; the quest for musical gnosis and profundity which was shared by players such as Bird, 'Trane, and Miles have become a scholastic cataloging and print/copy of their work. Want to play jazz today? You must attend a university or conservatory and learn to mimic the swing feel of Philly Joe Jones or the tone of Wes Montgomery, or the exact voicings Red Garland and McCoy Tyner used. What we have as modern jazz is basically these elements produced over the rhythm/feel of a different genre. Smooth Jazz is soul music with sharp nine chords and chromaticism, etc....

As music and the classical arts continue to dilate we move on to the explosion of rock and roll for 25 years or so. Let's call 1955-1980 the "hey day" of rock. We have our pantheon: Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. From '80 their art form had its rules codified and conventions put in place so that there could no longer be any further progress.

Today music has fully degenerated. Platinum records are made on MacBook Pros and not a single mainstream record since 1980 has had a single live performance. Artists today release live records where the only track actually used off of the mixing board was the vocals and crowd sound. Everything else is usually redone or at least edited in a studio before release. With the digital age and the advent of electronic music, a performance can now be copy/pasted. Have a song where the first two verses are identical in every way except the lyrics? Copy/paste the rhythm section. Want to play the fastest solo ever? Record it in real time as slow as you can play it cleanly and then once it's recorded tell the computer to bump it from 40 bpm to 320 bpm without changing pitch. Singer out of tune? Pitch correct it. Drummer has bad time and has no pocket? Beat map the track, put a click track on it, tell the software to mark each beat and it's subdivisions with visual lines and drag each of your drummer's hits to line up exactly. This has produced the sloppiest generation of musicians as far back as I can think. Maybe there was a time in the dark ages where lute and fife players were just as bad and couldn't read or play in tune and in time. In the town I live in symphony players make 75 bucks a night and they had to get a college education to get there. Today anyone can be a "guitar hero". You can even land a high profile gig as third guitar. You'll be lucky to make ends meet and you will share a double hotel room in the high crime part of town with two crew guys who love coffee and beer and destroy your toilet within an hour of check in. Not to mention how late they'll keep you up while they guzzle the rest of the nights booze and shop for hookers on craigslist.

I don't think much from the nineties will ever be preserved, and it looks the same for the last 14 years. Instead of art forms we now have cults of personality. What kind of music do you like? Beyoncé. Bieber. Miley Cyrus.

reply to post by Magitera


Thanks for the response, and I agree! I've been there on all fronts you mentioned. I've had to record in that digital manner myself, and it does feel unnatural, but it's just the way things are done these days. Hard to find an affordable studio that offers analog. Had a friend awhile back who owned an 8 track reel to reel recorder, and it was fun, but lost a lot of what we recorded when we tried to transfer it to a file. I do view 1955 thru 1980 as the pinnacle of pop/rock and roll. Not to say there isn't still some good stuff going on out there, but it just doesn't have a real outlet or way to be exposed to a seriously wide market. Most people today wouldn't even know what it was if they heard it. I keep up with the good stuff in magazines like Uncut.
As far as mainstream music goes, it's just prefabricated corporate fluff. I hold no hope for the mainstream. I really think these are dark days for music. I think the 90's were the last gasp for any musical movement with a semblance of soul.

ItCameFromOuterSpace
reply to post by Magitera

 

Thanks for the response, and I agree! I've been there on all fronts you mentioned. I've had to record in that digital manner myself, and it does feel unnatural, but it's just the way things are done these days. Hard to find an affordable studio that offers analog. Had a friend awhile back who owned an 8 track reel to reel recorder, and it was fun, but lost a lot of what we recorded when we tried to transfer it to a file. I do view 1955 thru 1980 as the pinnacle of pop/rock and roll. Not to say there isn't still some good stuff going on out there, but it just doesn't have a real outlet or way to be exposed to a seriously wide market. Most people today wouldn't even know what it was if they heard it. I keep up with the good stuff in magazines like Uncut.
As far as mainstream music goes, it's just prefabricated corporate fluff. I hold no hope for the mainstream. I really think these are dark days for music. I think the 90's were the last gasp for any musical movement with a semblance of soul.

We certainly see eye to eye on this! Dark days indeed and the near future looks even worse. I hope you have a stockpile of great recordings because soon we will not have anything new to cherish and love.

Magitera

ItCameFromOuterSpace
reply to post by Magitera

 

Thanks for the response, and I agree! I've been there on all fronts you mentioned. I've had to record in that digital manner myself, and it does feel unnatural, but it's just the way things are done these days. Hard to find an affordable studio that offers analog. Had a friend awhile back who owned an 8 track reel to reel recorder, and it was fun, but lost a lot of what we recorded when we tried to transfer it to a file. I do view 1955 thru 1980 as the pinnacle of pop/rock and roll. Not to say there isn't still some good stuff going on out there, but it just doesn't have a real outlet or way to be exposed to a seriously wide market. Most people today wouldn't even know what it was if they heard it. I keep up with the good stuff in magazines like Uncut.
As far as mainstream music goes, it's just prefabricated corporate fluff. I hold no hope for the mainstream. I really think these are dark days for music. I think the 90's were the last gasp for any musical movement with a semblance of soul.

We certainly see eye to eye on this! Dark days indeed and the near future looks even worse. I hope you have a stockpile of great recordings because soon we will not have anything new to cherish and love.

People like us may have to eventually create a repository of sorts to preserve the music and culture! I try to snag up just about every vinyl record, cassette tape, 8-track, cd, etc. etc. I can. I have lots of radio recordings on tape as well, which features the nearly extinct radio DJ.
I'm really hoping to get one of those turn tables that will convert vinyl into computer files so I can store my vinyl away safely and keep the files for listening purposes.

reply to post by ItCameFromOuterSpace


Amazing. Absolutely. I have quite a vinyl collection myself and there is no substitute.