Santana - The Shaman of Latin Rock

Mexican Heritage

The story of Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán begins in the heart of the small town of Autlán de Navarro, a town of barely 50,000 people in the Costa Sur region, in the southwestern area of the Mexican state of Jalisco. When he was born, on July 20, 1947, his seemed almost a destiny forged in fire: the Santana family had already produced two generations of professional musicians, starting with his father José, who had for years led a mariachi band. Carlos's grandfather, Antonino, played French horn in another band that tried to scrape together a day-to-day living in the city of Cuautla. But while the horn didn't seem the most suitable instrument for making money in the clubs downtown, the violin played by José became the perfect means of earning a living in postwar rural Mexico. Steeped in traditional folk music, father José's violin was the first vehicle through which a passion flowed from grandfather to grandson, when little Carlos was only five years old.
Having moved from Cuautla to Autlán, the Santanas lived a simple life, divided between music, prayer and farming. They grew corn, then went to church and played the violin as grandfather Antonino had taught them. José married Josefina Barragán in 1940, starting a family that was anything but small: three boys, Antonio, Carlos and Jorge, and four girls, Louise, Irma, Lelicia and Maria. Feeding all those mouths through farming alone wasn't easy, which is why José made his violin smoke with Los Cardinales, moving between Mexican melodies and jazz versions of songs from the Duke Ellington and Cole Porter songbook. This was precisely the first music lesson José passed on to young Carlos in 1952: playing "European" music while still respecting local tradition.

In Autlán my father taught me how to read music, when I was very young. And he taught me to play the violin when we were in Tijuana, drilling into my brain all the music that came from Europe. After a while I started going around, on the street, with two other kids who played guitar. "A song, sir? Fifty cents!" Basically we played all the most clichéd Mexican songs

In truth, the very young Carlos was initiated above all into the three Bs of classical music, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms — a lesson that struck a blow against the mariachi tradition that is officially the soundtrack to every celebration and holiday in Mexico. José Santana was an itinerant, multilingual musician, and his Los Cardinales embodied the Spanish-rooted tradition of a band made up of acoustic guitar, violin, trumpet, acoustic bass and maracas. By the age of ten, Carlos was good enough to play second violin. But mariachi music was too rigid, anchored to a style that left no room for experimentation. And by 1957 Carlos was in love with the pioneers of American blues, from Muddy Waters to Jimmy Reed. Those guys played guitar, not violin in a mariachi band.
A rebellious spirit lived in young Carlos's heart, and in 1961 he moved with his mother Josefina to the Pacific coast, to Tijuana, within spitting distance of the California dream. The Santana family had blown apart after the discovery of José's infidelity, so it was Josefina who took charge of continuing Carlos's musical education. In Tijuana, a band called the TJs performed every night, playing R&B songs from the Chuck Berry or Little Richard songbook. The guitarist's name was Javier Batiz:

His mother and a friend brought him to my house and asked me to teach him to play guitar like me. I said yes, but on the condition that I'd first teach him bass, simply because I didn't have a bassist in the TJs. Carlos already knew how to play violin and mariachi acoustic guitar, but I taught him how to play electric blues

Carlos thus began playing electric guitar, thanks to an amplifier his father José gave him during his long absence in 1961. "Papa, papa, I don't like playing the violin anymore. I like the guitar!" And so young Santana joined a local R&B band, the Strangers, who were rivals in Tijuana of Batiz's own TJs. The group was a regular act at the El Convoy Club, a dirty, violent dive where a curvy stripper was generally preferred to the music. But Carlos hardly cared, because now he had a guitar and he was playing the electric blues of Muddy Waters.

"If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair"

The Santana family moved to San Francisco's Mission District in 1963. Josefina had long been convinced that her children would have far better professional prospects in the States, but Carlos was not at all convinced and wanted to go back to Mexico immediately. For at least two reasons: his English wasn't on a par with that of his schoolmates, and, more importantly, in San Francisco it wasn't at all easy to find a club to play in. Nothing like the old, seedy El Convoy. Young Santana was determined and got his way: he went back to Tijuana, where he started living at the home of a family friend. But the good times didn't last long, because Josefina made him return, since the United States mattered far more for his future success. A conviction that would prove tremendously accurate.
But Carlos continued to struggle to settle in San Francisco, feeling out of place in his class at Mission High School. In the early 1960s most teenagers loved pop groups like the Beach Boys, dreaming of sunny beaches and waves to ride on a surfboard. Even if the riffs of his beloved Chuck Berry sounded similar, young Santana's tastes were quite different, closer to the bluesy wail of B.B. King. Of course there was also that little problem with written and spoken English: as a student, Carlos only excelled in the art classes. Despite the difficulties, he managed to complete his entire primary education, even making several friends along the way. Two of them, guitarist Gus Rodrigues and drummer Dan Haro, suggested forming a band to make some money playing parties. Armed with his Gibson Les Paul, Santana agreed only because he was offered a new amplifier. As with the Strangers, no official recording survives today, but the experience gave him further stylistic grounding, since the three of them played soul music in the style of one of his idols, Steve Cropper.
By the mid-1960s, the time came to leave the family home. He earned a living washing dishes in a restaurant, going to live on his own in a small rented room. In the Haight-Ashbury area, a new conception of freedom and musical spirituality was emerging, fuelled by an increasingly reckless use of drugs like mescaline and LSD. The hippie movement drew Carlos in like a magnet, especially because it embodied that culture of vision and experimentation he had long secretly loved. A regular user of hallucinogens, Santana became friends with a Bay Area barber, Stan Marcum. Marcum couldn't read music or play an instrument, but he had a vast knowledge of jazz-blues and convinced Carlos to really give the music business a shot. In essence, Marcum was the person who worked to strengthen Carlos's awareness, urging him to follow the dream of a "European" music, only now steeped in acid and the words of Timothy Leary.
The die was cast: Santana would become a professional musician. His first live opportunity came in 1966, when he was chosen along with other young musicians to form an instant band to replace an intoxicated Paul Butterfield. They had to play at the Fillmore Auditorium on a Sunday morning, and Carlos phoned his family to invite them, since he hadn't seen his parents in almost two years.

From Tijuana to Woodstock

It was my father who taught me how to get inside a note. Once you're inside a note, all you have to do is put your fingerprints on it

Carlos Santana's sonic imprint reaches back a long way, to the songs of African slaves that gave rise to the blues. Blended with Mexican folk tradition and the grandeur of European classical music, the aching sounds of the devil's music came to life in Carlos's first successful outfit, the Santana Blues Band. The embryonic version of the group featured second guitarist Tom Fraser alongside percussionist Marcus Malone, Rod Harper on drums, Sergio "Gus" Rodriguez on bass and Gregg Rolie on organ. This was the lineup lucky enough to fill in for the unavailable Paul Butterfield at the Fillmore West, invited directly by the club's boss, the German-American rock promoter Bill Graham.
Born Wolodia Granjonca to parents of Russian-Jewish origin, Bill Graham had a dramatic family history. After the death of both his parents — his mother was killed in a Nazi concentration camp — the very young Bill boarded a ship bound for the United States from Lisbon. Adopted in New York, he scraped by through a thousand odd jobs before moving to San Francisco to make his mark in the music world. Having become manager of the Jefferson Airplane in 1967, Graham began personally running the auditorium known as the Fillmore West, founding the booking agency The Millard Agency to organize the most important concerts in the Bay Area. Also a friend of Stan Marcum, Bill gave the Santana Blues Band their chance.

It's not my decision. Ask Bloomfield. If he says you can play, then you play

The show at the Fillmore West was an early live incarnation of Carlos Santana's sonic visions, in love with the acid-fuelled experimentation of groups like the Grateful Dead, but at the same time with the fiery riffs of Jimi Hendrix. Blues, rock and jazz merged into a Latin rhythm that bewitched Graham and convinced Stan Marcum to become the Santana Blues Band's first manager. Although not a musician himself, Marcum made his first move by bringing in bassist David Brown, followed by drummer Bob "Doc" Livingston and percussionist Marcus Malone on congas. Stan was in fact the first to grasp the original potential of applying Afro-Latin rhythms to rock, a veritable craze in the United States between 1967 and 1969. Graham, too, was by now tired of the usual acid-drenched jams and had never heard a group able to play a blues jam while sounding, at the same time, like Tito Puente. It was in fact Bill who introduced Carlos to Willie Bobo and his guitarist Sonny Henry's song "Evil Ways", a mix of Latin rhythm and pop harmony perfectly suited to becoming the Santana Blues Band's first hit.
The band was now a fixture at the Fillmore, and in 1968 they set the stage alight with a blues-rock arrangement of a song, "Gin-Go-Lo-Ba", which came straight from Nigeria via drummer Babatunje Olatunji. The shamanic dance of "Gin-Go-Lo-Ba" took root in the acid-soaked imagination of the hippies, who danced with eyes closed, swaying their hips to the rhythms of black Africa. That's the whole secret behind the Santana Blues Band's success: a patchwork of genres absorbed into rock jamming, topped by a guitar that seemed to weep the blues. For Carlos it was more than just playing music — it was a matter of closeness to the earth, to his parents, to the spirit of the world. That's why, as 1969 dawned, he was furious at the ongoing worldly escapades of his rhythm section, Livingston and Malone. If the group was going to make it big, they needed serious people with a serious background. So back came percussionist Michael Carabello, who in turn suggested bringing in another percussionist of Nicaraguan origin, José "Chepito" Areas, who had already played with dozens of Latin music groups. Even more striking was the replacement of Livingston, who gave way to the very young Michael Shrieve, who at not even twenty already seemed like a jazz veteran, having absorbed Miles Davis and John Coltrane. The addition of Carabello, Areas and Shrieve set the Santana Blues Band up for the great leap toward rock immortality.
With the new lineup in place, there was still one small matter to sort out. The San Francisco Musicians Union required that every affiliated group have a designated leader and, of course, a name. To meet this requirement, Carlos and his bandmates decided to simply call themselves Santana, like one big family playing Latin music. In truth, "family" may be too strong a word. Even before they went into the studio with Columbia to record their first album, some members of the group were quietly thinking they'd be better off without Carlos. The guitarist was, after all, a perfectionist, someone who wanted to control the musical direction of the whole group. Everyone was wired on drugs, and above all Bill Graham himself was pressuring Carlos to abandon the free-form jam approach in favor of releasing hits more suited to a mainstream audience. The truth is that the varied backgrounds of the Santana members were both a great opportunity and an enormous problem: while David Brown wanted to play soul, Mike Shrieve wanted to play jazz. But there was a huge live event on the horizon that would suddenly bring them all into agreement.

Bill Graham's shrewdest move puts Santana on stage at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Sunday, August 16, 1969. It's an enormous gamble, since the band is unknown outside the Bay Area and hasn't even released an album yet. On top of that, there are more than thirty far better-known bands on the bill, all set to play in front of half a million people. In truth, Santana's debut record is practically finished – it will be released on August 30, 1969 under the name Santana on Columbia Records – and six of its songs set Woodstock ablaze. Carlos and his bandmates kick off with the tribal percussion of "Waiting," and thousands of people start swaying their hips in time. "Evil Ways" is the perfect mix of Latin rhythm, pop vocal harmonies and blues guitar, Carlos's first turn as a guitar hero over Gregg Rolie's hypnotic organ. It's exactly as if Tito Puente had started playing rock. The crowd keeps heating up, and Santana push into hard-blues territory ("You Just Don't Care") before setting the percussion and the whole rhythm section — masterfully led by the just-turned-twenty Michael Shrieve — on fire. The latin-jazz of "Savor" opens onto the acid tropical tribalism of "Jingo," moving on through the funky sarabande of "Persuasion" and triumphing with the esoteric masterpiece "Soul Sacrifice," one of the finest instrumental performances ever captured live. Carlos, at the peak of his mescaline trip, is convinced the neck of his guitar is a snake; Rolie plays with his hands crossed over each other, while Shrieve launches into a solo worthy of a jazz veteran. "Soul Sacrifice" sends the Woodstock crowd into a standing ovation and propels the album Santana into the Billboard Top 10.

“Fame, it’s not your brain, it’s just the flame”

We were the core, me and Gregg Rolie

After the triumphant performance at Woodstock, Santana find the perfect balance in their sonic circle. The lineup of Rolie, Brown, Shrieve, Carabello and Chepito Areas is practically a flawless machine, traveling across multiple musical styles in search of a fusion never heard before. And yet Carlos doesn't seem satisfied:

The first album sounded healthy, when we recorded it, very quickly. By people who didn't know anything at all about music or how music was actually supposed to be recorded

Tension builds. Despite having first-rate musicians at his disposal, Carlos wants to be the leader and steer things in his own direction. The first frictions between Carlos's leadership — backed only by Gregg Rolie — and the rest of the band surface on the group's second record, Abraxas. The first two minutes of the opening instrumental tapestry "Singing Winds, Crying Beasts" say pretty much everything about the new staging devised by Carlos and Rolie, true lovers locked in a dramatic organ-guitar duet, as if to push the rest of the band's members into the background. Where Santana was governed by the anarchic rule of the instrumental jam that fused styles – soul, funk and Latin, as in the masterpieces "Treat" and "Fried Neckbones" – on Abraxas it's Carlos calling the shots. After "Evil Ways," the new hit is "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen," a warm rendition of the song recorded in 1968 by Peter Green and his Fleetwood Mac. A longtime devotee of Green's music, Carlos translates the original song's rock and roll rhythm into a new polyrhythmic architecture that fuses rock and Latin sound, led by a guitar that seems to weep as it carries the piece into its instrumental jazz finale, drawn from the repertoire of Hungarian composer Gábor Szabó. The surprise is "Oye Cómo Va," a tribute to the king of mambo Tito Puente that recalls all those spectators swaying their hips at Woodstock.

I was convinced it was a song like Louie Louie or Guantanamera. It's one of those songs that, when you play them, people get up and start dancing. That's all there is to it

On Abraxas the experimental jams of early Santana aren't entirely set aside: "Incident At Neshabur" is another instrumental masterpiece, written by Carlos with his pianist friend Alberto Gianquinto, a piece of progressive jazz guided by Shrieve's hand, capable of rising and falling between hard guitar and soul melodies. In stark contrast, the romantic Brazilian melody of "Samba Pa Ti" is the guitarist's own imposition, showing off his exquisite technique as it shifts between slowness and carnival rhythm.
Abraxas is a different record from Santana, because Rolie's funky-soul groove on "Hope You're Feeling Better" merges with Carlos's hard-blues inflections to make clear to the rest of Santana that the real core consists of just two people. A shame, since Santana are one of the finest ensembles ever to grace US stages. Abraxas is one of the best-selling records in the United States, staying on the chart for six consecutive weeks after its release in October 1970. Compared to the debut album, it's an international success and leads to an overwhelming surge in demand to see Santana live. Meanwhile, Michael Carabello gets a new roommate, a fifteen-year-old electric guitar prodigy named Neal Schon. Recommended by Rolie and Shrieve, Schon is brought into the group by Carlos himself, even though he joins at about the worst possible moment.

We entered one of the worst periods of my life. The success was too much. We were trying to record 'Santana III,' but the excessive indulgence in everything that represented a successful rock and roll musician was becoming a real problem

There's another problem: a cerebral aneurysm strikes Chepito Areas, forcing him to stop for at least six months. Santana replace him with Thomas "Coke" Escovedo, against the wishes of Carabello, who believes the band should pause and wait for the essential Nicaraguan percussionist. The group is a powder keg, split between Carlos's use of psychedelic drugs — which he considers essential to expanding his musical vision — and the other members' abuse of alcohol and cocaine, who are accused of lacking discipline. It's also a matter of artistic division: songs like "Samba Pa Ti" and "Oye Como Va" aren't liked by the rest of the group, who don't consider them worthy of Santana. Carlos tries to push Carabello out by threatening to leave the group, and the group pushes Carlos out for a couple of weeks on tour.
While Carlos grows ever more steeped in psychedelic drugs and hippie counterculture, Santana set about recording their third album, still called Santana but later known as Santana III. Escovedo, the newcomer brought in to temporarily replace Areas, immediately clashes with the band's guitar hero. It's still not clear, in fact, who pushed for including the horn section led by Tower of Power on the soul sarabande "Everybody's Everything," meant to be the group's new hit on the global record market. And yet Santana III opens with "Batuka," a brief instrumental funk jam credited to every member of the group except Carlos.
The record is in fact direct testimony to a dangerous human powder keg: "No One To Depend On" is credited to the new Carabello-Escovedo duo, still drawing inspiration from the songbook of Willie Bobo. Introduced by the psychedelic jazz number "Taboo," one of the album's high points is "Toussaint L'Overture," which runs parallel to the earlier "Incident At Nushbur" as a totally anarchic exercise in free improvisation. "Jungle Strut," lifted from the discography of jazz saxophonist Gene Ammons, leans heavily on newcomer Neal Schon's wah-wah. "Para Los Rumberos" is the new rumba borrowed from maestro Tito Puente, the Latin rhythm that closes out another (and final) magnificent Santana record.
Immediately topping the Billboard chart, Santana III is the swan song of that first, fantastic incarnation of Santana. The band that had enchanted Woodstock is on the verge of imploding, devastated by a total breakdown in communication and widespread drug abuse. Even though Gregg Rolie tries to organize a rehabilitative gathering at his house, things no longer work: Carlos asserts his right to experiment with psychedelic drugs, while bassist David Brown spends around 250 dollars a day on cocaine.

The situation, already shaky on its own, comes to a head when sessions are arranged for the live album Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles! Live!. From the title alone it's clear that the record's protagonist is the Mexican guitarist alone, even though during the concert in Hawaii all the attention goes to Miles, far better known to the general public for his time in Electric Flag and above all in Jimi Hendrix's Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys. But Carlos's choice to share the stage with the drummer from Omaha is no accident: it's his first step toward a musical direction that moves away from blues-funk territory and decisively toward the far less commercial realms of jazz and jam rock. The nearly 25 minutes of "Free Form Funkafide Filth" represent what some will see as "commercial suicide," others as "a direct dialogue with the universality of man."
Adding to the tension, at the Sunshine '72 Festival Carlos brings along only percussionists Escovedo and Carabello together with young guitarist Neal Schon. From the hard-funk of "Marbles" to the jazzy-soul rhythms of "Them Changes," the record cut at the foot of the Hawaiian volcano will (strangely enough) be criticized by Santana himself, but it's essential in marking the transition from the band's first three works to what would come right after. After the death of one of the greatest rock ensembles of the late Sixties.

Love Devotion Surrender: toward the spirit of jazz

This is professional suicide
(Clive Davis, head of Columbia Records)

The record speaks directly to the universality of man, both in the sound of the music and in its voice
(Rolling Stone)

Carlos Santana is certainly no novice when it comes to jazz. His father had already instilled in him a love for Django Reinhardt and the swing of Duke Ellington's big band. By the time he set foot on the stage of the Fillmore Auditorium in 1966, he was drawn to many experimental groups, like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, a particular favorite of promoter Bill Graham.

When I arrived in the United States, most of my guitar vocabulary came from musicians like B.B. King, Freddie King or Albert King... Gabor Szabo soon became my way out from under B.B. King, opening up a world of new possibilities on the guitar. I earned the right to have my own style

Carlos is also enamored with the new experiments of Miles Davis, as suggested by his own drummer Mike Shrieve, who has been studying him for years. Lately drawn closer to the funk of bands like Sly and the Family Stone or Funkadelic, Davis is the guiding light for Santana when he enters the studio in the summer of 1972 for the sessions that will produce the album Caravanserai. The record features a new incarnation of Santana, with Douglas Rauch replacing David Brown on bass, Tom Coster taking the place of an increasingly distant Gregg Rolie, and new percussionist Armando Peraza. Despite the major changes, the band doesn't lose its original spirit – the jam "Song Of The Wind" is still co-written with Rolie and features an intense dialogue between the guitars of Carlos and Neal Schon – but at the same time it evolves alongside its lider maximo: the Afro-Brazilian composition "Stone Flower" (Jobim) is completely reshaped by exotic arrangements, with a sumptuous drum performance by the genius Michael Shrieve. Caravanserai is genuine cosmopolitan jazz, capable of fusing multiple cultures into an aura of mystical Latin spiritualism. Instrumental at its core, Caravanserai is a total gamble for Santana, coming as they are off the glory of Woodstock and three successful albums. Clive Davis, president of Columbia, calls it "professional suicide." Carlos is stubborn and won't hear of it: he has to move from latin-rock to latin jazz.

Two albums marked a turning point for me: "Caravanserai" and "Welcome". At that time, I was convinced my whole existence revolved around John Coltrane. I remember going to the record label and telling them: I know what you want, but I can't give it to you because I don't feel it anymore. I knew I'd pay the price in lost sales, but I didn't care

Caravanserai is a genuine commercial suicide, but the intro of "Eternal Caravan Of Reincarnation" is a manifesto of intent. The fact that Carlos leaves the task of leading the guitar to Neal Schon shows how much the musical project matters more than any single song or hit. Even though the Mexican guitar returns on the rock-jazz "Waves Within", Carlos seems fused with the whole, finally at peace after poorly digested albums and bitter clashes with musicians who weren't fully respected. Here, instead, there's the addition of an acoustic bassist, Tom Rutley, who pairs with the new man Rauch on the hypnotic polyrhythmic masterpiece "All The Love Of The Universe". Often favored by jazz veterans, acoustic-electric instrumental pairings return on piano in "La Fuente Del Ritmo", which condenses in just over four minutes the mix of rhythmic fury and harmonic sophistication that makes Caravanserai one of the most important records of the entire '70s.

After the album's release, Carlos feels a sense of fulfillment, even though sales are incredibly solid, if not quite what Columbia had hoped for. Now bowing to the guitarist's will, Clive Davis suggests Santana work with John McLaughlin, who has already played with the sacred monster Miles Davis. English by birth, McLaughlin is an immensely talented jazz guitarist, so admired by Davis himself that he named a track on his album "Bitches Brew" after him. John, however, has decided to leave Miles to found his own fusion-jazz band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Founded in 1971 by McLaughlin and drummer Billy Cobham, the group embodied John's genuine devotion to the Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, who had encouraged him to choose the name "Mahavishnu", meaning "Divine compassion, power and justice" or simply "Great Vishnu".

The album Birds Of Fire (1973) has a huge impact on Carlos's new artistic direction, as he has already unconsciously chosen the replacement for Neal Schon in order to push his experimentation even further. Among other things, McLaughlin has also already played with Buddy Miles, a friend of Carlos's and a former touring companion.
But the encounter with John isn't only artistic: at the end of 1972, McLaughlin tells Carlos about his guru Sri Chinmoy, which will lead him to give up drugs and alcohol to fully embrace musical spirit as a form of gratitude toward the divine spirit. The bond between Santana and McLaughlin is sealed by their shared love for John Coltrane, who with his music magnificently fused East and West. Dressed like two angels, Carlos and John unleash upon the earth their version of "A Love Supreme", a spiritual dialogue between electric guitars evenly split across the two audio channels, right and left.

Love Devotion Surrender is the record that completely transcends rock, edges toward jazz, but speaks directly with the divinity of music. Santana and McLaughlin embrace what could be called an "ecstasy jam", an instrumental dualism that pays tribute to Coltrane – still within the nocturnal romanticism of "Naima" after "A Love Supreme" – in order to touch the divine spirit described by guru Chinmoy. With only Doug Rauch, Mike Shrieve and Armando Peraza brought along from Santana, Carlos has by now reached the peak of instrumental experimentation, and alongside John he can let loose, as on "The Life Divine" and on the sprawling "Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord", where he partly recovers the weeping sound of his early guitar work, shaped by blues and Latin rhythms. His real name is now Devadip – essentially, the "light of God" – and his musical spirituality yields another record of great note, even if less universal than Caravanserai.

The year is 1973. After his full immersion in jazz spiritualism, Carlos Santana's life takes an unexpected turn. He marries Deborah King, daughter of the respected R&B guitarist Saunders King. She has just left Sly Stone, just as Carlos has just left almost every member of his band. King too follows the teachings of Sri Chinmoy, a devoted enthusiast of yoga and Indian philosophy. The new year opens with a long international tour, interrupted in spring for the recording of the next album, Welcome. For the occasion, Santana recruits jazz singer Leon Thomas and keyboardist Richard Kermode, leaving a spot open only for Rauch, Shrieve, Areas and Peraza.
Welcome is another particularly ambitious record, opening with a version of the popular African-American song "Going Home", blended with Dvorak's New World symphony. Santana pushes further into fusion-jazz, reuniting with McLaughlin on "Flame-Sky" and paying tribute once again to Coltrane on the title track. For some observers it's an even sharper swerve toward experimental jazz than Caravanserai, which remains the album that magnificently blends the old and new Santana. Welcome, on the other hand, is a work with flaws – "When I Look Into Your Eyes" overdoes it with gospel choirs and cheesy dance-hall funk rhythms – but it hits hard with "Love Devotion & Surrender", which fuses multiple rhythms (jazz, psychedelia, soul, funk) with the warm voices of Wendy Haas and Leon Thomas.
On "Samba de Sausalito" Carlos returns to his beloved Afro-Brazilian music, crafting a perfect groove with the collaboration of "Chepito" Areas. The same goes for the whispered tribalism of "Mother Africa", which captures the true intent of the new Santana lineup: playing world music to capture the spirit at the center of the earth.

Right after recording Welcome, Santana go back on tour, landing in Japan in July 1973 for the show at Osaka Koseinenkin Hall. The lineup is the same as on the just-recorded album, and fans are ecstatic, because this will be the first performance ever recorded for a live album. Lotus comes out in May 1974 in a limited edition for the Japanese market only, a two-hour triple LP where only the music does the talking, long improvised jams blending the band's first incarnation with its new experimental path. From a magnificent version of "Black Magic Woman/ Gypsy Queen" to the nearly seventeen minutes of "Incident At Neshabur", Lotus is an extremely long record that showcases the talent of Carlos and his band.
New keyboardist Richard Kermode duets with Tom Coster, bringing an almost sci-fi, space-psychedelia approach to the sound (the new "A-1 Funk" and "Batukada"). The album is also a chance to hear a solo of over nine minutes by Michael Shrieve ("Kyoto") and yet another extremely long version of "Samba Pa Ti". Santana's Japanese show is a true sonic triumph, from the acid funk of "Free Angela" (Todd Cochran) to "Mantra", introduced by funeral bells and carried along by free-jazz toward the heaven of the greats of popular music.

After the release of the first greatest-hits collection of his career, Carlos decides to collaborate with John Coltrane's widow, Alice. A harp and keyboard player devoted to the avant-garde, Alice Coltrane offers Santana another chance to continue down his anti-commercial path. Illuminations, however, is an excess, a record suited to yoga meditation and new-age enthusiasts. From the angel of air to the angel of water, the spiritual drift is perhaps too much, amid orchestral arrangements stuffed with harp and warm "close your eyes and relax" rhythms. Carlos's fans are completely thrown off, since there's almost no Latin rhythm at all, except for "Angel Of Sunlight", where Peraza's congas play, fused with Indian tabla drums, in a sort of trip halfway between Ravi Shankar and a latin-jazz jam.

Unlike the other records, Illuminations is a genuine commercial flop, and it pushes Columbia's marketing department to the brink of exasperation. Carlos himself begins to realize that his fanbase is dangerously shrinking, which is why he decides to relaunch himself immediately with Borboletta, released just a month later. The album closes the Santana fusion-jazz trilogy that began with Caravanserai and Welcome, with a decisive turn toward more Afro-Brazilian and funk sounds thanks to the addition of percussionist Airto Moreira and Bay Area saxophonist Jules Broussard.
From the funky-jazz of "Life Is Anew" it's immediately clear that Carlos is trying to return to more radio-friendly territory, after the extreme, improvised peak of Illuminations. With contributions from Christian singer Leon Patillo and the return of bassist David Brown, Borboletta goes back to warm Afro rhythms while still keeping the experimental-jazz sonic framework, as on "Give And Take". Tracks like "One With The Sun" and "Practice What You Preach" shy away from the jam format, softening and warming the tones toward a mix of jazz, funk and more commercial Brazilian rhythms, closer to what Santana's aficionados had been missing since Caravanserai. Yet Carlos doesn't give up on his new ambitions, crafting the splendid ride of "Promise Of A Fisherman", a last nod to a fervent creative period that will never return.

By the end of 1974, Carlos Santana is a divided musician. On one hand he quietly blames his record label for never truly supporting his jazz experiments; on the other he's worried about the inevitable bleeding of fans, which is why Borboletta tried to recover a more commercial sound. While some of his own musicians criticize him for "wanting too badly to get inside Coltrane", his old friend Bill Graham tells him plainly that he's not at all satisfied with the direction he's taken, especially after the huge early success of latin-rock. Jazz, after all, has never drawn the masses, and Carlos's own attempt to educate his early fans never really paid off. And since Carlos Santana has always sought out adoring crowds, the experimental period of the masterpiece Caravanserai fades away for good.

The return of the latin-rock shaman

You had that street-star quality, that ethnic charisma dripping with sweat. People loved that quality. If you created that, then you keep doing it. And you can keep doing it in a way that's maybe more controlled, more refined. But honestly I don't like refinement, because you can say what you have to say bare-chested

So says Bill Graham to Carlos, the man chiefly responsible in 1975 for bringing the new Santana lineup back to its latin sound. This is part of the speech the manager and promoter gives the Mexican guitarist before the recording sessions for Amigos, released by Columbia the following year.

I still don't look at the Billboard charts. But I care about people. Touring with Earth, Wind & Fire made me realize that a lot of people are still waiting for the Santana band, solely and exclusively to get what we used to give them back then

Whether the real reason was Graham's pressure or Carlos's deference to the fans, the recording sessions for Amigos don't go very smoothly, because the same European-born promoter wants the album produced by David Rubinson, who had already worked with Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and Herbie Hancock. The problem is that Carlos and David had already tried working together without much, to put it mildly, chemistry. But Graham and Columbia — who decide to renew the Santana contract for another five years — are thrilled with the choice, eager to ride the commercial wave again. Amigos also marks the return of original bassist David Brown, though Carlos loses the brilliant Mike Shrieve, replacing him with a more latin-oriented drummer, Ndugu Leon Chancler.
The shift in direction is all too obvious right from the opening track, a mix of salsa seasoned with danceable riffs titled "Dance Sister Dance (Baila Mi Hermana)". "Take Me With You" brings back the Latin guitar in the vein of Santana III, though the track closes in the more jazzy style of recent works. But that's just a veneer, because the following "Let Me" and "Tell Me Are You Tired" unleash funk in the manner of early Sly & The Family Stone or Stevie Wonder. Meanwhile "Gitano" makes room for flamenco guitar and Peraza's Cuban percussion, and "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile)" becomes the new "Samba Pa Ti", with its seductive guitar lines and romantic atmospheres straight out of Latin American magical realism.

With 500,000 copies sold in the United States, Amigos marks a modest comeback success for Santana, quickly followed in 1977 by Festival, which sorely misses the rhythm section of Peraza and David Brown, replaced respectively by Raul Rekow and new bassist Pablo Tellez. Right in the thick of the punk movement, Festival is essentially a mirror of Amigos, nearly identical in song structure, from the samba "Carnaval" to Carlos's guitar style, which once again tries to recapture the Latin flavor of the early albums, as on "Let The Children Play".
The arrangements are practically identical to the previous record, from the afro-funk of "Jugando" to the soul moods of "Give Me Love". Festival also has its acoustic-percussive moment ("Verao Vermelho") as well as one devoted to weeping guitar, "The River". It's essentially a passport-photo album, redeemed by the aching jazz-blues ballad "Revelations", probably the one true highlight of the whole record.

Despite Columbia's marketing efforts, Amigos and Festival are outshined in terms of popularity and sales by the second live album, Moonflower, which is actually the first ever released in the United States, since the magnificent Lotus wouldn't come out there until 1991. Spread across four sides, Moonflower is actually a mix of unreleased studio material — chief among them the futuristic funk of "Zulu" — and live tracks recorded during the 1976 European tour. The real gem, again from the studio, is the Latin-tinged cover of the Zombies' beat classic "She's Not There", while the sprawling versions of "Soul Sacrifice", "Savor" and "Toussaint L'Overture" can't be overlooked, adding up to nearly thirty minutes of fiery instrumental improvisation.

The gradual retreat from jazz experimentation is brought to a definitive close with the surprising Inner Secrets, released in the autumn of 1978 and made up almost entirely of covers of other artists. From the opening notes of "Dealer/Spanish Rose" (from the Traffic songbook), Santana also leave Latin rhythms behind, replacing them with a genre best described as album-oriented — essentially an FM-radio format tied to classic rock. "One Chain (Don't Make No Prison)", a cover of the Motown vocal group Four Tops, rides new bassist David Margen's bassline into a disco-funk groove.
Inner Secrets waters down Santana's music completely, dredging up old hits like "Stormy" (Classic IV) dressed in soft-soul clothing; while their version of "Well All Right" doesn't measure up to the one released by Blind Faith in 1969. The new direction is summed up by the hard-metal riff of "Open Invitation", which in under five minutes practically disowns everything the band had built up until 1977.

Even more surprising is the follow-up, Oneness: Silver Dreams – Golden Reality, credited solely to Carlos, or rather Devadip, the Sanskrit name given to him by guru Sri Chinmoy. The Mexican guitarist returns to his love of spiritual music, already explored on the mediocre Illuminations, turning away from the rock-pop mainstream to celebrate the rituals of Eastern spiritualism. Joined by a few band members — from keyboardist Tom Coster to Peraza — Carlos returns to his passion for purely instrumental pieces, leaving his wife Deborah (or Urmila, in Sanskrit) to recite the guru's poetic verses. Oneness is therefore a kind of instrumental continuum that can't be broken down into individual tracks, a prayerful flow that is certainly less abstruse than Illuminations, closer to more "definable" genres like funk and free jazz.
Tracks such as "Life Is Just A Passing Parade", for instance, follow in the footsteps of the latest Santana albums, built around singer Greg Walker's soulful vocals. The record is, however, overloaded with strings, celestial harmonies and guitar kept almost in the background, as on the ballad "Guru's Song" or the sprawling title track, which nonetheless remains fascinating, in a style not unlike that of Mark Knopfler.

Probably discouraged by the inevitable commercial failure of the record, Carlos tries again shortly after — it's 1980 — with an exceptional lineup: Wayne Shorter on soprano and tenor sax, Herbie Hancock on piano and Tony Williams on drums. These are former members of the fantastic Miles Davis Quintet, which earned fame and respect in jazz circles in the late Sixties. "They're the best musicians on the planet," Santana enthuses to the press. The new project is titled The Swing Of Delight and effectively marks the guitarist's attempt to finally earn the status of "real musician" among both audiences and critics. The problem is that Santana is still fixated on the Indian guru, and ends up badly squandering such an abundance of talent chasing the same old Indian mantras, raga riffs and Hindu invocations.
Instrumental tracks like "Swapan Tari", "Phuler Matan" and "Jharna Kala" — all credited to Chinmoy — pretty much say it all in their titles, long evocative jams that put fusion-jazz in the service of prayer. Far more engaging are the dialogues between the featured musicians on the tracks not tied to the guru, such as the pure, unadorned melody of "Love Theme From Spartacus" and the piece given over to Shorter, "Sher Khan, The Tiger". The album, in the end, feels like a missed shot — a potential masterpiece flattened by forced devotion to the Hindu guru.

At the end of 1979, between the flop of Inner Secrets and the latest spiritualist effort, Santana's new album Marathon comes out, continuing along the muddled lines of Festival. With only Peraza surviving in the lineup, the band brings in vocalist Alex Ligertwood and keyboardist Alan Pasqua. The album is utterly forgettable, lost somewhere between dance rhythms ("Stand Up"), the usual salsa ("Summer Lady") and heavy-ballad temptations ("You Know That I Love You"). Torn between jazz leanings and commercial comebacks, Carlos doesn't even put his heart into it, turning out his worst record in ten years of his career.

Zebop!: The '80s Years

After the release of The Swing Of Delight in 1980, Carlos "Devadip" Santana's devotion to Indian guru Sri Chinmoy begins to fade. Two years later, the guitarist and his wife Deborah publicly declare that they no longer follow Chinmoy, after he made certain statements against tennis player Billie Jean King, who had publicly come out as gay.

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As if suddenly wanting to leave every spiritual connection behind, Carlos steers Santana toward the top of the Billboard charts, fully embracing a mainstream sound pop-rock devoid of any artistic ambition. The first album of this "pop revolt" is Zebop!, released in 1981 with new drummer Graham Lear and singer Alex Ligertwood. From the very first guitar strums of "Changes", a Cat Stevens cover, Zebop!'s intent is to ride the commercial wave even harder than Amigos and Festival did. From the funky "E Papa Ré" to the salsa rhythm of "Primera Invasion", the album does manage to sell well in the States — a million copies, per RIAA figures — but it will be remembered more as an empty exercise, a string of disjointed tracks good only for FM radio. The biggest hit is "Winning", which sounds like it could have come straight from the Journey songbook, with a bland anthem-rock flavor. If, in the end, the best tracks are covers — the other being J.J. Cale's "The Sensitive Kind" — that's an alarming sign for the band's songwriting powers after more than ten years of innovation.

The loss of the Latin identity is still evident on the following Shangó, where only three of the eleven tracks could be called similar to the old Santana band. "Nowhere To Run" is in fact another classic-rock number in the Journey mold, just as "Hold On" apes romantic soul without ever really sweeping you away. And yet Shangó does have some interesting moments: for instance, the instrumental "Nueva York" brings back the instantly recognizable organ of old partner Gregg Rolie. The exotic fusions of Caribbean and African rhythms on "The Nile" and "Oxun (Oshūn)" are also intriguing, though that's not quite enough to speak well of the record as a whole, which doesn't offer much hint of creative promise for Santana's future in the '80s.

In 1983 Carlos goes back to working as a solo artist on the album Havana Moon, featuring an impressive roster of guests, from Willie Nelson (vocals) to Booker T. Jones (keyboards) and Jimmy Vaughan (guitar). Santana returns to one of his old loves, the Texas-blues style of idols T-Bone Walker and Freddie King. Naturally, with Carlos heading back to Texas, Havana Moon becomes a record with a tex-mex sound, a kind of anthology of his earliest musical influences.
Opening with "Watch Your Step", a Bobby Parker hit transformed by a hypnotic riff not too distantly reminiscent of the Beatles' "Paperback Writer", Havana Moon is a (at least) sincere and enjoyable record, a kind of attic full of Carlos's sonic memories. "Who Do You Love?" (Bo Diddley) rekindles his love for blues-beat, while the title track reinterprets rock and roll totem Chuck Berry as if set against the sunset of a Cuban evening. The album closes with the border romanticism of "They All Went To Mexico" and the splendid mariachi ode "Vereda Tropical", featuring the voice of his father José, bringing things full circle on a nostalgic, sincere record that, for that very reason, surpasses others made chasing the charts.
The courage Carlos shows in musically narrating his family memories — his father José even takes part in Havana Moon, despite past abandonments and betrayals — is unfortunately just an isolated case in his 1980s discography.

In 1985, three years after Shangó, the band's new album Beyond Appearances is released. Born out of a gestation period of more than seven months in the studio, the record is a resounding flop, both commercially and critically. Carlos once again overhauls Santana's lineup, bringing in drummer Chester Thompson and multi-instrumentalist David Sancious, previously among the founding members of Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band. The record is an attempt to break into new wave territory, but ends up drowning in a swamp of synthesizers and drum machines. From the artificial pop of "Breaking Out" to the Police-like sub-rhythms of "Written In The Sand", it's practically impossible to get "beyond appearances", because the album is muddled, lost between bland arrangements ("Brotherhood") and synthetic atmospheres straight out of the worst of the Eighties ("Spirit").

Two years later, in 1987, the line between Santana's band output and Carlos's solo work grows increasingly blurred. That same year sees the release of Freedom first, marking the welcome return of Gregg Rolie on keyboards and featuring the vocals of Buddy Miles, who dominates the proceedings from the opening funk-rock of "Veracruz". The new Santana record isn't exactly free of the synthesized rhythms of Beyond Appearances — see the plasticky soul of "She Can't Let Go" or yet another Caribbean funk number, "Once It's Gotcha" — but Carlos's guitar returns to craft some interesting, more latin-jazz-oriented pieces, as on the instrumentals "Love Is You" and "Mandela", as well as on the elegant ballad co-written with Jim Capaldi, "Before We Go". Freedom nonetheless fails to win over either audiences or critics, becoming another sales flop, though it does pave the way for a world tour that revives the band's fame across Europe and Asia.

Only a few months separate Freedom from the new solo record, Blues For Salvador. Yet the synthesized pop-rock plate served up by Santana is replaced by one of the Mexican guitarist's most sophisticated works. Winner of a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, Blues For Salvador features the participation of several band members, but is credited to Carlos alone, who returns to his love for Coltrane and Mingus, producing some of his finest solo guitar parts. It opens with the nostalgic Latin movement "Bailando/Aquatic Park", followed by "Bella" – dedicated to his daughter Stella – which applies the lessons of master Wes Montgomery.
The album immediately sounds like a sudden reappearance of the real Santana, the anti-commercial one that emerged with Caravanserai and onward. With Tony Williams on drums and Armando Peraza on percussion, "Trane" races fast down the hard-rock tracks, while the long rock jam "Now That You Know" is the live guitar ride that celebrates its author amid raga rhythms and electric blues. The album is thus a welcome return to Carlos's earliest musical influences, before the Latin turn and the jazz rhythms. Pure blues, electric, romantic and decidedly inspired.

Despite critical acclaim and the Grammy win, Blues For Salvador fails to revive the guitarist's commercial fortunes. The relationship with Columbia Records thus begins to crack, when the label decides not to release a new live album recorded at the famous Montreux Jazz Festival with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who with his own group, Weather Report, had sold remarkably well, also for Columbia.
The situation comes to a head after the release of the triple album Viva Santana!, a massive retrospective compilation of Santana's work since the late Sixties. While Columbia expects the usual best of to shift copies, Carlos goes his own way and compiles over two and a half hours of music featuring unreleased material, live gems and instrumental tracks initially left off the recording sessions. The result is an extremely valuable work of recovery, which adds even more value (especially) to early Santana. Without dwelling on the classics included, Viva Santana! opens with the elegant live version of "Jungle Strut" recorded at Montreux, followed by the Latin-progressive masterpiece "Ballin'" (a studio track salvaged from way back in 1967, even before the Santana debut). The supersonic, distorted boogie "Super Boogie/Hong Kong Blues" clashes head-on with the mysticism of "Song Of The Wind", recorded live in Paris in 1977. Closing things out are the African rhythms of "Bambele" and the triumphant "Persuasion" from the Woodstock Festival.

Changes and retrospectives

At the dawn of the new decade, Carlos Santana ends his professional relationship with Columbia Records, after years of friction and artistic disagreements. The Mexican guitarist had always felt frustrated by his contracts with the Washington-founded label, which he often accused of never truly understanding or properly promoting his music. In 1990 he still has one last album to "honor", Spirits Dancing In The Flesh, which again features bassist Benny Rietveld in a new lineup with Chester Thompson on keyboards and the ever-faithful Armando Peraza on percussion. Opened by the unusual gospel choir of "Let There Be Light", the album is closer to the sophistication of Blues For Salvador than to Santana's recent commercial efforts.
Not entirely original, Spirits Dancing In The Flesh includes covers ranging from Curtis Mayfield (the funky-soul "Gypsy Woman") to John Coltrane, once again paid tribute to in the strange and fascinating hard-blues suite "Peace On Earth... Mother Earth... Third Stone From The Sun". The record looks back to the past with a new version of "Jin-go-lo-ba" (Babatunde Olatunji), but it is not free of new flaws veering into the synthetic and commercial, as in "It's a Jungle Out There" or the cocktail-lounge romanticism of "Full Moon". More honest are the sturdy blues of "Choose" and the tribal-jazz dance "Soweto (Africa Libre)". The whole record tries to break away from chart logic – it is in fact the last Santana album for Columbia – but it never quite lands the killer blow, at times floundering, as with the bland R&B of "Who's That Lady".

Spirits Dancing In The Flesh is yet another commercial flop for the band, the final disaster for Columbia, which lets Santana slip into the arms of Polydor Records. The first work for the new label is titled Milagro, released in May 1992 and dedicated to the memory of the recently deceased Bill Graham and Miles Davis. As with the previous album, Santana dive into a modern eclecticism, ranging from the Latin funk-rock of "Introduction – Bill Graham (Milagro)" to the gospel ballad "Somewhere In Heaven", opened by a speech from Martin Luther King.
With Rietveld and Chester D. Thompson confirmed in the lineup, Carlos draws on the repertoire of Marvin Gaye ("Saja/Right On") and fine-tunes his guitar arrangements, as in the sinuous gospel-rock of "Your Touch". Despite the new record deal, the band still doesn't make commercial compromises, venturing into the hypnotic bass raga-jazz of "Red Prophet" or the Cuban rhythms of "Agua que va caer". The album, at the very least, is one of the band's most solid since the late Seventies, though with a few missteps like the pointless reggae of "Free All The People (South Africa)" or the unbearable melodic soul of "Make Somebody Happy".

After the release of Milagro, Santana embark on a new world tour that in May 1993 brings them to Mexico City for two triumphant shows. Carlos has brought in his brother Jorge as second guitarist, and agrees to have the performances recorded for the new live album Sacred Fire: Live In South America, which over nearly eighty minutes gathers old masterpieces – above all, the version of "Soul Sacrifice" with inserts of "A Love Supreme" – alongside the new songs from Milagro. The arrangements Santana chooses, however, are almost exclusively geared toward danceable Latin sound, considerably toning down the old latin-jazz vein. The record, which also becomes a popular documentary film in the States, is most significant for bringing in brother Jorge, paving the way for Carlos's subsequent solo project, titled Santana Brothers.

Santana Brothers is the album that unites the family's guitar trinity, involving Jorge and nephew Carlos Hernandez, released in 1994 almost as a side project through the small label Guts and Grace. Polydor, in fact, refuses to release a largely instrumental album, one that above all breaks with the sound carried forward so far under the Santana name. The opening "Transmutation/Industrial" comes as an epileptic shock for the band's fans, a mix of ambient atmospheres and heavy-metal sounds never before heard in Carlos's discography. The pace of the instruments suddenly picks up ("Thoughts"), moving from the romanticism of "Luz Amor y Vida" to the acoustic flamenco of "Contigo (With You)", all the way to yet another rewrite of "Samba Pa Ti" in "Blues Latino".
The album, essentially, is more a stylistic exercise among the three relatives than a well-thought-out work, a collection of jams like "La Danza" that add nothing to our overall understanding of Carlos Santana's place in the history of music.

In 1995 it's time to look back: Sony Records releases the triple album Dance Of The Rainbow Serpent, which includes a sixty-page booklet featuring Carlos's own commentary on the songs. The compilation is decidedly interesting, as it includes the instrumental live gem "In A Silent Way", recorded at the Fillmore West in San Francisco in July 1971. Another gem is the tribal "Se Eni a Fe L'Amo-Kere Kere" with African master Babatunde Olatunji, followed by the voodoo-blues "The Healer" (with John Lee Hooker) and the masterful, distorted duet with the talented Vernon Reid.

After the collection The Ultimate Collection, Columbia Records empties out the archives with the double album Live At The Fillmore 1968, sonic proof of the fantastic performance by the very first incarnation of Santana at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Even before their debut album – with Livingstone on drums and Malone on congas – Santana prepare for Woodstock with a simply perfect live set, from the hypnotic version of "Jingo" to the sprawling jam "Soul Sacrifice". In between are two gems, "Chunk A Funk" and "Conquistadore Rides Again", before the over-thirty-minute marathon "Freeway". With an outstanding sound mix, Live At The Fillmore is the recorded testimony of the magical alchemy between Santana's guitar and Rolie's organ, perhaps the west-coast band's most important legacy to the history of popular music.

With a little help from my friends...

By the late Nineties, Carlos Santana is like a ghost wandering aimlessly across the global record industry. The band's last album, Milagro, dates back to 1992. His last solo project, Santana Brothers, came out two years later. In between, various salvage operations, between live albums and compilations of various kinds. Reflecting on a career as a musician always balanced between experimentation and commercial attempts, the Mexican guitarist decides to found the Milagro Foundation with his wife Deborah in 1998.
Left adrift after the tragic death of his first mentor Bill Graham in a helicopter accident in 1992, Carlos finds a new guide in Arista Records boss Clive Davis, who had left Columbia after a bitter firing. Since its founding in the Seventies, Arista has always made plenty of room for musicians like Ornette Coleman and Anthony Braxton, artists Santana had long admired. Not only that. Clive Davis had become famous throughout the music business for his ability to revitalize the careers of many artists who had declined after the Sixties, such as Aretha Franklin and the Grateful Dead. The Arista boss thus finds in Carlos Santana the perfect patient for his next record-industry miracle.
The idea comes almost naturally: why not bring the Mexican guitarist face to face with the new generations of the Nineties? Why not have the Latin or Afro-Cuban sound meet grunge or hip-hop style?

With eight Grammy Awards, thirty million copies sold worldwide and the number-one spot on the charts in eleven countries, Supernatural brings Santana unprecedented commercial success, the forbidden dream Columbia Records had long nurtured, finally harvested by the modern genius of Clive Davis and his Arista. Seven years after Milagro, the band returns with thirteen songs that win over half the world, helped by a modern sound and collaborations with some of the most beloved artists among the mainstream audience.
Supernatural is remembered by most for the pop-latin super-hits "Smooth" (with Rob Thomas), "Corazòn Espinado" (with Manà) and "Maria Maria" with the new R&B wizard Wyclef Jean, tracks that play nonstop on radio stations across half the world. Regardless of individual listeners' tastes, the album is flawlessly crafted, able to blend the most varied genres to revive the sound of a band that hadn't gotten an album right since the late Seventies. Worth noting are the tribal opening of "(Da Le) Yaleo", followed by the acidic grunge ballad "Put Your Lights On" (with Everlast) and the underground-soul-rap rhythms of the splendid "Do You Like The Way" with Lauryn Hill and Cee Lo Green.
While "Migra" works along tex-mex border rhythms, "Wishing It Was" (with Eagle-Eye Cherry) veers seductively toward lo-fi. Carlos's guitar has never been so electric, brimming with romance on "Primavera" and finally devoted to experimental shuffle-blues on the sprawling, midtempo closing duet with Eric Clapton, "The Calling".
Often overshadowed by its own commercial success, Supernatural is a record that succeeds on every level, the only possible artistic outlet for an artist who had by then completely vanished from the musical radar.
Supernatural thus carries Santana to the top of the world, introduced by Clive Davis at the 42nd Grammy Awards in February 2000. Only Michael Jackson with "Thriller" had previously won so many awards at once. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences even decided to create an alternative Grammy category to appease Latin music figures – Gloria Estefan foremost among them – who had been completely overshadowed by the album. Unfortunately for Estefan, Carlos still walked away with three more awards in the Latin category.

The monstrous success of Supernatural soon turns into a boomerang, especially once Carlos sets out on tour with the band to perform live a set of songs that had become famous the world over. The "Santana & Friends" approach devised for the album by Clive Davis, however, is almost impossible to replicate on stage, not least because none of the guest artists who gave the record such a strong imprint are present. All that's left, then, is the new (and massive) Latin arrangement, the only hook capable of drawing in a younger audience that has only now discovered a dinosaur that had seemed to lose all artistic direction.
While Sony/Columbia try to ride the wave of the latest album's success with two compilations – which, however, cannot include tracks from the new record due to a lack of agreement with Arista – Carlos finds himself at a crossroads in the early 2000s. What will the next step be? Clive Davis's answer is inevitable: stick with the winning formula, and so work toward a Supernatural 2. The problem is that the follow-up, Shaman, no longer features pop-rock sacred monsters like Eric Clapton and Dave Matthews. Davis decides to push even further down the youth-oriented path, essentially putting his guitarist at the service of even younger talents, such as nineteen-year-old vocalist Michelle Branch on the chart-smashing new single "The Game Of Love".
Opened by the African chant "Adouma", the longest album Santana ever recorded – nearly eighty minutes of original music – caves badly to pop, failing to recapture the alchemy of Supernatural. Tracks like "Nothing At All", with rapper Musiq, are only good for younger fans of the genre, with the guitar relegated to a barely pleasant ornament. Shaman is thus a needlessly long and utterly plastic record, as in the Cuban duet "Amoré (Sexo)", which does at least feature the smooth voice of Macy Gray. Carlos's guitar now seems completely detached from the rest of the band, and it's the first time on record that any "relationship" with the percussion section is entirely absent.
While the instrumental romanticism of "Victory Is Won" briefly brings to mind the band's old atmospheres, "America" (with P.O.D.) is inserted with no real justification, in a sort of horrifying mix of Latin and nu-metal. Utterly convinced he could repeat the success of Supernatural with this new duet format, Davis certainly succeeds commercially (over 2.5 million copies in the States alone), but Carlos flops spectacularly with a pretentious, irritating record, closed out with the (deafening) bang of a collaboration with Placido Domingo, where Supernatural at least had the gorgeous shuffle with Clapton.

In December 2003 the new compilation titled Ceremony: Remixes & Rarities is released, drawing on the hit-filled repertoire of recent albums to offer a series of remixes, such as the new version of "Why Don't You & I" with Alex Band of the Calling. The following year, Carlos and Santana headline the prestigious Montreux jazz festival, with a fresh lineup of guests of honor. This time we're talking about jazz sacred monsters such as Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ravi Coltrane and Idrissa Diop. The live show ends up as a film released on DVD by Eagle Rock, testament to a triumphant performance, very different from the teen-pop-latin sound of the recent Shaman.

Longtime fans thus have to settle for prestigious venues to catch another glimpse of Carlos's more elegant style. In 2005, All That I Am is released, practically the third installment in the chart-devouring saga with the new generations. With the exception of the opening "Hermes"/"El Fuego", which evoke an Afro-Caribbean sound without any guest stars, the album relegates the Mexican guitar even further to mere accompaniment for its host of guests, from the usual Michelle Branch ("I'm Feeling You") to Mary J. Blige on the dancefloor R&B number "My Man". Climbing the charts is the radio-friendly pop number "Just Feel Better", featuring veteran rocker Steven Tyler, while at least "Trinity" restores some dignity to the guitar itself, with a collaboration from Kirk Hammett.

Towards guitar heaven

Having become a wealthy star of global pop-rock, Carlos Santana now splits his time between charity concerts and hefty donations through his Milagro Foundation. At the end of 2007, rumors begin circulating about divorce proceedings filed by his wife Deborah, reportedly following an affair by her ever-touring husband. The guitarist's press office denies the claims, while he dedicates several love verses to her in the booklet of his new instrumental retrospective, Multi-Dimensional Warrior.

Meanwhile, the Australian label Mastersong has released the gem The Very Best Of Santana – Live In 1968, a double album that revisits the electric Fillmore West days following Shrieve's arrival on drums. The album contains several live rarities never included on official releases, from "Everyday I Have The Blues" to a Joe Cocker-style version of "With A Little Help From My Friends". Compared to his more recent studio work, the mystical blend of progressive and latin sounds from the late '60s feels like a beam of light from a now-buried past.

Between 2007 and 2009, two more live albums are released. The first is Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival 1988, a recording of the Montreux concert with Wayne Shorter from the summer of 1988. The second revisits the Woodstock concert in the box-set The Woodstock Experience, which includes both the debut album Santana and the explosive performance that established the band on the West Coast scene.

The following year brings Guitar Heaven, a sort of appendix to the Arista trilogy built around the Carlos & Friends format. The album consists entirely of covers of legendary rock songs, from "Smoke On The Water" to "Little Wing", and features the usual duets between the Mexican guitarist and the likes of Chris Cornell ("Whole Lotta Love") and Rob Thomas ("Sunshine Of Your Love"). The versions, however, all come off plasticky, fine for radio but not for genuine fans. Aside from a few interesting moments – "Riders On The Storm" with Chester Bennington – it's an unbearably long record that could easily have been skipped, especially given the utter lack of inventiveness following two already questionable albums.

Santana finally become a band again in 2012 with Shape Shifter, which introduces new vocalist Andy Vargas and does away entirely with guest stars. The album is the first released under his new label Starfaith, distributed by Sony Music Entertainment, and opens with the Indigenous-inspired chant "Shape Shifter", which at least hints at a change of direction after years of pop duets.
With his bank account well padded after the "melodies" with Michelle Branch, Carlos can go back to experimenting with an unexpected, perhaps overly bold record, though still worth hearing for the cinematic instrumentals "Dom" and "Nomad". There's still a touch too much romanticism – the piano of "Angelica Faith" and the flamenco guitar of "Never The Same Again" – but it's nonetheless a small comeback for a musician resurrected only thanks to a new generation of players.
Shape Shifter isn't a great album, but the Cuban-jazz "Macumba in Budapest" and the exotic homage "Mr. Szabo" deserve a nod of encouragement.

2014 brings Corazón, marking a reunion with producer Clive Davis and (inevitably) the return of guest stars. Billed by RCA as "the first Latin album", Corazón features songs exclusively in Spanish and sonic atmospheres drawn from the Global South, spanning cumbia, salsa and Caribbean ska. Appearances aside, Carlos's guitar plays a far more prominent role here than on albums like Shaman. The duet format works well this time, as on the opener "Saideira" with Samuel Rosa of Brazilian reggae-rock band Skank. Juanes also fares well with his crooning vocals on the cover of Jarabe De Palo's "La Flaca".
"Mal Bicho" spins aggressively on a cumbia rhythm, while "Iron Lion Zion" is an effective mix of reggae and hip-hop with Ziggy Marley. Personal taste aside, the album is solid, enriched by a cover of Pink Martini's "Una Noche en Napoles" featuring the triple delight of South American vocalists Lila Downs, Nina Pastori and Soledad.
Ultimately, Corazón is another step in Santana's ongoing courtship of new generations, but this time at least it's carried out thoughtfully, with an unexpected vitality, in dialogue with latin popular music.

Right after the release of Corazón, Carlos embarks on what is perhaps his most complex and fascinating project yet: reuniting the old band to follow up on Santana III. Back in the studio come conguero Michael Carabello, Gregg Rolie, Mike Shrieve and Neal Schon, joined by Benny Rietveld, who replaces David Brown, who passed away in 2000. This lineup, unquestionably the best version of Santana, embarks on a creative process that lasts a full two years before giving birth to the iconic Santana IV in 2016.
From the tribal opening of "Yambu", it's clear this isn't just another reunion album by aging rock dinosaurs, but a carefully thought-out, well-rehearsed record shaped by the varied experiences its musicians accumulated over more than forty years. Staying true to the band's original sound, the one that set Woodstock alight, Santana IV is a highly varied record in terms of musical styles, once again able to unleash the magic of guitar-organ-drums interplay that made Bill Graham's fortune in the late Sixties.
"Shake It" is a howling blues-rock number that fuses Afro-Cuban rhythm with the groove of Peter Green, whose influence resurfaces on the slow two-chord "Blues Magic", probably the best B-side ever released for "Black Magic Woman". The band is clearly in great form, as shown on the long, nocturnal psychedelic jam "Fillmore East".
At over 75 minutes, Santana IV is hardly innovative or radical, but it perfectly captures the magic created by seasoned musicians who, after all these years, rediscover the sheer pleasure of playing together.

The Santana IV project also includes an excellent live album recorded at the House Of Blues, Las Vegas, featuring the return of old classics – "Soul Sacrifice", "Jingo", "Evil Ways" – and of course the new songs, driven by the phenomenal rhythm section of Mike Shrieve and Michael Carabello.

Three years later, in 2019, Santana return to business as usual with the EP In Search Of Mona Lisa, recorded after Carlos reportedly had an epiphany upon realizing he'd never visited the Louvre during his French tours. At barely thirty minutes, it's a highly questionable project, worth a listen (perhaps) only for "Do You Remember Me", a (sleep-inducing) slow number in Cuban style with some nice electric guitar phrasing.

Far more successful is the latest project, Africa Speaks, born from Santana's meeting with celebrated producer Rick Rubin, with whom he shut himself away at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu to record nearly fifty songs in just ten days. With a lineup featuring a strong female presence – vocalists Buika and Laura Mvula, plus drummer Cindy Blackman Santana – Santana pay tribute to African music with a genuinely surprising sonic spirit. While Afro-Latin rhythm has often been dominant since the late '60s, on Africa Speaks the African continent takes over almost entirely, to the point that it barely sounds like a Santana record at all.
From the title track onward, which winks at Andalusian flamenco, the album builds into a crescendo of polyrhythmic sounds of enviable elegance and power. "Yo Me Lo Merezco" veers into hard-rock territory with a rustic duel between Carlos and Rietveld that stands as one of the finest performances in the band's entire discography. From the nocturnal jazz-blues of "Blue Skies" to the humid cumbia of "Breaking Down The Door", the album puts the whole Global South into music, closing out the trilogy of rediscovered roots that began with Shape Shifter. When the latin-jazz notes of "Bembele" kick in, it feels like a return to the atmospheres of "Song Of The Wind", and so too to the return of an artist who wants only to express himself, free of commercial anxieties or record-label pressure.

Sentient (2025) marks a further evolution in the guitarist's sonic journey, combining elements of latin rock, jazz fusion and ambient textures. At nearly 78 years old, the Mexican-American guitarist returns with a work that weaves together past and present, blending three new tracks with reinterpretations and collaborations drawn from various moments of his artistic career, including contributions from artists of the caliber of Michael Jackson, Miles Davis, Smokey Robinson, Paolo Rustichelli, Darryl McDaniels and Cindy Blackman Santana. Standout tracks include "Whatever Happens", already known in Jackson's version but here enriched by a previously unreleased vocal exchange between the two musicians, and the instrumental live version of "Stranger In Moscow", where Santana's guitar moves between elegance and emotional tension.
The album opens with "Let the Guitar Play", a sonic manifesto of Santana's style, and offers a selection of tracks written by Paolo Rustichelli, such as "Get On", "Vers Le Soleil", "Rastafario" and "Full Moon", which also feature recordings by Miles Davis.
Sentient is neither a simple best-of nor an album of new material, but a coherent, intense collection that highlights the guitarist's most authentic, least commercial side.

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