Santana - 1974 "Borboletta"

Borboletta is the sixth studio album by the American Latin rock band Santana. It is one of their jazz-funk-fusion oriented albums, along with Caravanserai (1972), and Welcome (1973). Non-band albums by Carlos Santana in this style also include Love Devotion Surrender (1973) with John McLaughlin and Illuminations (1974) with Alice Coltrane, Jack DeJohnette and Jules Broussard. The guitarist leaves much 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 metallic 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".

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, so I will round up its rating to the upper unit, making it also a five star.

Original bassist David Brown returned to replace Doug Rauch and vocalist/keyboardist Leon Patillo joined. After the album's completion, drummer Michael Shrieve left, to be replaced by Leon "Ndugu" Chancler, who had guested on parts of the album.

Track listing:

01 Spring Manifestas (Sound Effects) 1:05

02 Canto De Las Flores 3:45

03 Life Is Anew 4:30

04 Give And Take 3:46

05 One With The Sun 4:20

06 Aspirations 5:12

07 Practice What You Preach 4:39

08 Mirage 4:43

09 Here And Now 3:01

10 Flora De Canelo 2:20

11 Promise Of A Fisherman 6:05

12 Borboletta 2:50

Total Time: 49:53

Personnel:

Carlos Santana – guitar (3-5, 7–11) percussion (2, 9), congas (7), gong (8), vocals (11), producer

Leon Patillo – vocals (3–5, 7, 8), piano (8), electric piano (3, 5), organ (4)

Flora Purim – vocals (1, 11)

Jules Broussard – soprano and tenor saxophones (4, 6, 9, 11)

Tom Coster – piano (4, 9), Hammond organ (7, 10, 11), electric piano, Fender Rhodes (2, 9–11), organ (3, 5, 6, 8), Moog synthesizer (4, 8), producer

Stanley Clarke – bass guitar (6, 9–11)

David Brown – bass guitar (2, 4, 5, 7, 8)

Michael Shrieve – drums (2–5, 7, 8), producer

Leon "Ndugu" Chancler – drums (6, 9)

Airto Moreira – drums (10, 11), percussion (12), sound effects (1), triangle (11), vocals (12)

Armando Peraza – percussion, congas (2, 4–6, 8, 11), bongos (3, 6, 11), soprano saxophone (10)

José Areas – timbales (4), congas (2, 3)

Michael Carpenter – echoplex (2)