Old soldiers never die. And old hippies never come down. That much seems obvious from the back story of Carlos Santana’s new EP. The short version: During the Woodstock veteran’s first visit to the Louvre a couple of years back, the Mona Lisa telepathically informed him that they had been lovers centuries ago in a past life. Then, a few months later, Da Vinci‘s most celebrated model returned to the singer-guitarist in a dream. Not needing a third hint from the cosmos, he promptly penned this musical triptych dedicated to his painted paramour and recorded it with producer Narada Michael Walden. The nine-minute Do You Remember Me opens the disc with a sensuous, slow-grooving acoustic guajira ballad. The title cut finds Santana breaking out his searing electric guitar licks and wah-wah pedal atop a Bo Diddley beat and alongside gritty vocals describing his romantically spiritual encounter. The third blends jazzy chord progressions, a bassline from the legendary Ron Carter, orchestral strings and scatting into a smoothly gliding finale. Edited versions of the first two cuts flesh out the EP, which will supposedly be followed later this year by the Rick Rubin-produced studio album Global Revelation. Assuming no other priceless, timeless art treasures confess their immortal feelings to him in the meantime.
