Customer Reviews
Re-issue not remaster? - By: Jim, 25 Aug 2008 
This is a great album, my personal Santana favourite. However, there is nothing to suggest on the box that this album has actuallly 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. - By: J. M. Pickthall, 17 Jan 2008 
The CD I received was not actuallly 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 - By: Jeremy Walton, 05 Oct 2007 
I heard "Caravanserai" for the first time in 1973 (the year after it was released), & it immediately became one of my favourite records. Later, I used it as a jumping-off point to go back & 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 alll 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": alll 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 - & 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, & am continuallly baffled by its beauty & excitement. Santana sounds as if he's barely channeling the flow of music coming out of his guitar. The gear change in the middle, & 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 & 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 & 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, & we can only be thankful that this band left this music behind.
The High Point - By: Douglas Miller, 08 Aug 2007 This was Santana at his (and their) absolute peak. A once-off album that transcended everything else he did & 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 & Greg Rolie (soon to form the dull Journey) never reached this level elsewhere. This was the moment that people like John McLaughlin took notice & 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 - By: , 18 May 2005 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 & 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 & its trappings & felt that the music he had been making was no longer what he wanted to do. Clearly, this caused tensions within the band & Caravanserai was recorded with a different line up from the first 3, although Rolie & Shrieve were still present (this was Rolie's last album with the band however).
The album is something of a paradox, being fairly dense & abstract while at the same time being light & 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 & the first five or six are reallly one single flowing track, with shifting moods & delicate, heartstopping guitar playing. The bossa nova influenced cover of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Stone Flower" is lovely & 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 & 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" & "Moonflower", this is unquestionably my favourite Santana album & 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" & "Shaman" are fantastic albums, then it's very possible that you won't like this as it's a million miles away from the alll 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.
