Santana & Herbie Hancock – Tokyo 1981

In a recent interview with Billboard, guitarist Carlos Santanarevealed he’s formed a new band with keyboardist Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, guitarist John McLaughlin and his drumming wife Cindy Blackman. The new band will be called Supernova.

“Definitely spring recording and summer touring in Europe and maybe America,” Carlos said of the group’s plans. “Can you hear it? It’s kind of like playing with, sharing music with Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, ’cause Wayne and Herbie, they’re at that level of genius, genius, genius, genius. I’m just grateful that they accept it and want to do it. And every time I play with Cindy, it goes viral. People go crazy. The energy between Cindy and I is very, very supernova.”

Santana has performed with each of the musicians in Supernova many times in the past. For today’s Full Show Friday we present audio of a gig Carlos played with a band that included Herbie in 1981 at Tokyo’s Den en Coliseum. In addition to Santana and Hancock the ensemble also featured Wynton Marsalis on trumpet, Ron Carter on bass, Tony Williams on drums and percussionists Armando Peraza, Raul Rekow and Orestes Vilato. The band rolls through a number of choice cuts including “Sorcerer,’ “Round Midnight,” “Europa” and “Saturday Nite,” but we’re most impressed with the sizzling, 22-minute “Watermelon Man” > “Evil Ways” > “Watermelon Man” sequence towards the middle of the set.

Check out audio captured from an FM radio broadcast:

• 0:00:00 Sorcerer 2:42
• 0:02:42 A Quick Sketch 16:50
  
• 0:19:32 Spartacus Love Theme 8:34
  
• 0:28:06 Watermelon Man – Evil Ways – Watermelon Man 22:10
• 0:50:16 Round Midnight 5:50
• 0:56:06 Song For My Brother 7:25
• 1:03:31 Europa 8:52
• 1:12:23 Saturday Nite 11:42