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Caravanserai: Remastered | 
| Artist: Santana
Label: Sony
Category: Music
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £6.47
You Save: £2.52 (28%)
New (37) Used (4) from £4.04
Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 9405
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
EAN: 5099751112822
ASIN: B0000A2I1B
Release Date: October 6, 2003
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Eternal Caravan Of Reincarnation | | • | Waves Within | | • | Look Up (To See What's Coming Down) | | • | Just In Time To See The Sun | | • | Song Of The Wind | | • | All The Love Of The Universe | | • | Future Primitive | | • | Stone Flower | | • | La Fuente Del Ritmo | | • | Every Step Of The Way |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Re-issue not remaster? August 25, 2008
This is a great album, my personal Santana favourite. However, there is nothing to suggest on the box that this album has actually been remastered, or that anything has been done to 'buff up' the sound, despite another reviewer's praise for the improved sound quality on this release. Maybe this is just a reissue rather than a remaster. If it were the latter surely that fact would be advertised on the packaging.
 Not actually re-mastered. January 17, 2008
The CD I received was not actually re-mastered. It was the same edition as the indifferent cd pressing I bought 4 years ago. If ever there was an album deserving a good re-master, this is it. It's going back. I believe it is mis-advertised.
 Masterpiece October 5, 2007
I heard "Caravanserai" for the first time in 1973 (the year after it was released), and it immediately became one of my favourite records. Later, I used it as a jumping-off point to go back and forth through the rest of Santana's catalogue, but found that none of their other albums (though pleasant enough) have had the continuous appeal of this one.
With vocals being kept to a minimum, you can appreciate all the details of the breadth of supporting instrumentation on display - Wendy Haas' percussive piano on "La Fuente del Ritmo", Hadley Caliman's breathy sax on "Eternal Caravan of Reincarnation", the uncredited frantic flautist on "Every Step Of The Way": all these players weren't part of the regular band (indeed, were only used on these individual tracks), but make each piece sound like a window into worlds that are different - mysterious, exciting, intriguing - and yet linked together into a heterogeneous suite, building to the climax of Michael Shrieve's unbelievable "Every Step Of The Way".
I've probably listened to this track thousands of times, and am continually baffled by its beauty and excitement. Santana sounds as if he's barely channeling the flow of music coming out of his guitar. The gear change in the middle, and that perfect lick that's used to start the second section, must be one of my favourite moments in music. And the appearance of the orchestra (which has been kept quiet up until this point of the record) moves the whole thing expansively up to yet another level.
This album is the apex of Neil Schon's achievements with the band, since he and Greg Rolie left immediately afterwards to form Journey. And I think that having a strong second lead player inspired Santana to greater heights of technique and inventiveness; certainly, in the subsequent history of the band, his overwhelming dominance seems to have been responsible for a lack of inspiration. All that was to be in the future however, and we can only be thankful that this band left this music behind.
The High Point August 8, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was Santana at his (and their) absolute peak. A once-off album that transcended everything else he did and took him from rock guitarist to true virtuoso. 'Promise of a Fisherman' on Borboletta was the only time he got close to the brilliance of this again. Magnificent playing from everyone with great respect shown to Tom Jobim on Stone Flower. Perhaps the well documented tensions in the band inspired them. Certainly Neil Schon and Greg Rolie (soon to form the dull Journey) never reached this level elsewhere. This was the moment that people like John McLaughlin took notice and wanted to play with Carlos.
He remains a rarity in that, unlike most musicians from this era he still cuts in live (though not, it must be said on cd). A real classic when that word is used far too much.
Searing beauty May 18, 2005
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
This is an astounding album. It sounds very different from anything else in the Santana canon, largely because it was very much a transitional work, retaining a sense of the psychedelic Latin rock of the first three albums whilst pointing to the fusion direction of later albums like Welcome and Borboletta but not entirely crossing over into jazz. Despite the success of the first 3 albums, by late 1971 Carlos Santana had become disillusioned with the rock n roll lifestyle and its trappings and felt that the music he had been making was no longer what he wanted to do. Clearly, this caused tensions within the band and Caravanserai was recorded with a different line up from the first 3, although Rolie and Shrieve were still present (this was Rolie's last album with the band however).
The album is something of a paradox, being fairly dense and abstract while at the same time being light and soulful. I know this sounds like a total contradiction, but if you hear the album, you'll know what I mean. Most of the tracks are instrumental and the first five or six are really one single flowing track, with shifting moods and delicate, heartstopping guitar playing. The bossa nova influenced cover of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Stone Flower" is lovely and the closing "Every Step Of The Way" contains mindblowing hyperspeed riffing with much use of Carlos' trademark almost infinite sustain. It is less immediately accessible than the first 3 albums and may take a few listens but this will be amply repayed, the inherent beauty of the music shining through.
Although I love the first 3 Santana albums, as well as later even more fusiony albums such as "Welcome", "Borboletta" and "Moonflower", this is unquestionably my favourite Santana album and one of the albums I listen to most frequently out of my entire collection. And every time I listen to it, it reveals something new to me. If you think "Supernatural" and "Shaman" are fantastic albums, then it's very possible that you won't like this as it's a million miles away from the all star Latin pop on these albums. However, you owe it to yourself to hear this album which firmly stakes Carlos Santana's claim to being one of the most innovative guitarists of the 2nd half of the 20th century.
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