Santana has a fairly coherent discography taking the band from Columbia Records to Polydor and, as of 2001, Arista. But apparently someone was recording them informally between their formation in 1966 and their signing to Columbia in 1968, and that someone has retained rights to those early recordings, because as of the late '80s they began to turn up on a series of unauthorized albums of which the budget-priced British title Latin Spirit is yet another example. "The tracks featured are live concert recordings or early studio recordings," reads a note on the back cover, and inside one learns that the recordings have been "Licensed courtesy of Music Rent, Inc." Listening to them, one is reminded of Carlos Santana's comments about the advice given the band by their manager, Bill Graham, about this time. "Bill Graham took us aside shortly after we signed with Columbia," Carlos is quoted as saying in {%Marc Shapiro}'s biography, {~Back on Top} (though the original source is no doubt an interview done by someone else), "and said 'If you're gonna make a record, you guys don't really have any songs, just jams, like 17-minute things.' We looked at him and said, 'Yeah, isn't that cool?' He said, 'No, it's not. You have to have some songs.'" The recordings on this album were made prior to this conversation, since the Santana band heard here has very few real songs. Titles such as "Jam in G Minor" and "Santana Jam" capture the contents well. Santana was always a great jam band, and there is some wonderful jamming here, but very little of it has structure or context. Buy this album to hear the group in an embryonic stage but don't expect anything more. And beware the multiple versions of these same tracks on other albums. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide