Santana: Live by Request

In this hour-plus 12-song concert recorded live at Sony Music Studios in October 2002, rock guitar god Carlos Santana, backed by a topnotch backup band, performs a string of Latin-flavored, percussion-driven hits drawn from 1969's Santana and the 1970 follow-up Abraxas (including “Black Magic Woman,” “Oye Como Va,” “Evil Ways”) and from Santana's 1999 comeback album Supernatural and 2002's Shaman. Santana is joined by original collaborators/performers Rob Thomas on “Smooth,” Michelle Branch on “The Game of Love,” and The Product G&B on “Maria, Maria” (great song, tedious posturing by the duo), and the band performs well on Angelique Kidjo's “Adouma” and the instrumentals “Soul Sacrifice” and “Europa.” The joy of watching Santana lay down one fantastic guitar lick after another on era-defining songs is admittedly dampened somewhat by the ambiance (although live, this is studio-filmed and has a real prefabricated feel to it), but most fans will overlook the atmosphere and embrace the great tunes, which sound good in Dolby Digital stereo here. Recommended. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)