Sunday Music Muse Day - Carlos Santana concert at CMAC

Today's Sunday Music Muse Day finds me recovering from great concert I attended last night by legendary rock guitarist Carlos Santana and his group at CMAC (The Constellation Brands-Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center) an outdoor concert venue in the Town of Hopewell, is just east of the City of Canandaigua on the grounds of Finger Lakes Community College.  The concert is billed as the Corazón tour.  The evening started with small, but pleasant, tailgate party hosted my the friend and neighbor, Bruce Younger and his wife Fran. (Thanks, again, Bruce for getting the tickets, back in November) 

 This was my first time a CMAC, which is a nice open air venue, if you have good weather, which we did, it's a great place to take in a concert.  Santana give a great concert is his signature brand of Latin-favored hard driving rock.  The set included a lot of old favorites and hits.  He give a spot light to his son, Salvador Santana, a sort of passing the musical torch to the next generation.   I personally wasn't too impressed his music which seemed more aimed the Hip-Hop crowd.

 I mostly enjoyed hearing that classic Santana guitar tone. 

 So, of course I had to revisit my Santana collections of music.  I don't have everything he's done but I do have t a nice mix of the early Santana band LPs and the Devadip Carlos Santana period LPs.

 One of the Santana LPs the Lotus, 3 LP set, originally released in 1974 as a triple vinyl LP in Japan only.  It has a crazy amount packaging art and foldput posters, Only some are show here.

 I spent the afternoon playing a lot of Santana discography.  Not a bad way to spent a Sunday afternoon.

Music Muse: Cream revisted

I picked up this  nice 2-disc DVD set about Cream, the legendary Rock group, with Eric Clapton (guitar), Ginger Baker (drums), and Jack Bruce (bass).  Cream was one of the first great "Power Trios" in Rock and one of my favorite music groups.  Another being the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which is my all-time favorite Rock group.   The DVD set covers Cream's entire story from the beginnings in 1966, to the farewell concert in 1968, and the two reunions 2005.   The viewing the DVD was a great trip down memory lane, but the best part is the music still holds up, just as powerful and driving as ever.

Just a side note:  The only troubling thing for me about the DVD was the so what shabby appearance of Jack Bruce.  He is wearing a very worn, stained, and frayed jacket, like something you'd pull off a homeless guy.  It rises my concern, as I know he was very sick for a time,  that he was still going through rough times at the time of the interview.  You would think the production crew would have given him a better jacket.   I hope all is well the him.  He and the member of Cream deserve the best for all the great music they made together and in the separate solo careers after.