Incident at Neshabur

"Incident at Neshabur" is the fourth track from the 1970 Santana album Abraxas. It was written by the band's pianist Alberto Gianquinto and Carlos Santana himself. The track is an instrumental. "Incident at Neshabur" has several rhythm and time signature changes consistent with its jazz feel.

Origins, composition and meaning

As Carlos Santana stated, "Neshabur is where the army of Toussaint Louverture – who was a black revolutionary – defeated Napoleon in Haiti. So that's what it's about. I think by writing songs like 'Incident at Neshabur' and 'Toussaint L'Overture,' we felt we were our own kind of revolutionary [...] Alberto Gianquinto, our pianist on Abraxas, helped us a lot putting it together. The first part of the music is from Horace Silver's 'Señor Blues.' The slow part is [...] from Aretha Franklin's 'This Girl's In Love With You.'"^[1][2]

Releases

As well as Abraxas, this song appears on several compilations such as Lotus, Viva Santana!, The Best of Santana Vol. 2, Santana and Shorter at Montreux and Santana.

In the live album Fillmore: The Last Days which includes works from 14 different bands, Santana presents the song to critical acclaim. Allmusic describes the performance as "strong showing" and, despite negative review of the album, Hooterollin' Around writes that "only Santana really stands out, with 'Incident at Neshabur' and a unique version of Miles Davis's 'In a Silent Way.'"^[3][4]

The performance is shown in the music documentary film Fillmore released on June 14, 1972.

References