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Customer Reviews of Welcome

My third favorite Santana album
It is hard to believe that this was only Santana's fifth album (sixth if you lived in Japan). It is such a departure from anything they had done in the past. It is hard to imagine that a group would scrap a formula that created 3 block buster albums and throw it all away to experiment in a totally new direction.

This album is jazz fusion, that was popularized by people like John McLoughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Chick Corea and Return to Forever. However, it still keeps Santana's latin influences.

This is a wonderful album of beautiful rhythms and sounds. My favorite track is Mother Africa, written by Herbie Mann. There is a great 11 minute duet between Santana and John McLoughlin. Love, Surrender and Devotion is great song with alternating male/female vocals.

Although this was a jazz fusion album, it even generated a hit single: When I Look Into Your Eyes. For some reason, DJ's always called the song "When I Look Into Your Eyes With Leon Thomas On Vocals". Like anyone had heard of Leon Thomas before this.

It is interesting that CBS Records has reissued this as part of their Legacy series. It is where they reissue the most important, classic jazz and blues albums from their vast library. There are some very formidable albums in this series including classics from Miles Davis and the SuperSessions from Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield.

This CD contains one bonus track, Mantra. It is a wierd track of a repeated staccato organ riff. It isn't bad, but I don't think it is worth by the reissue for that track if you already have a copy of the original without that track. I think it is out of place and doesn't add anything to this album. There was enough room to put it on the original LP, so if it really belonged they would have included it in the firts place.

The reason I say this was Santana's sixth album in Japan is because Santana recorded a live album called Lotus before this was released. It was released only in Japan on LP's. The only was to get Lotus was to buy the very expensive Japanese import. When CD technology came out, it was finally available in the US. I don't know why CBS records did that. They also did it with Blood, Sweat and Tears.

I said this was my third favorite Santana album. My first is Caravanserai, and the second is Lotus, 2 very intense hours. I wasn't a big fan of Santana's eighties pop period, although he did have some good songs and was always good in concert.

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part of three
Welcome gets four, not five, stars for this reason only: it is the second part of what is, in retrospect, a three-album documentation of Carlos Santana's period with the guru Sri Chinmoy. This period began with Caravanserai, followed by Welcome then Borboletta. To appreciate Santana's growth during this period, one must take these three albums together as a single body of work (and Columbia should consider a special release in which they are packaged that way).

The Caravanserai-Welcome-Borboletta triple play was a departure from the initial Santana incarnation that began with Santana's debut (Evil Ways, Jingo, etc.)and ended amid the tension and hard feelings that surrounded the recording of Santana III (Everybody's Everything, No One to Depend On, et. al.). The highlight of that debut period was Abraxas.

But unlike Caravanserai, Welcome and Borboletta (actually 4, 5, and 6 in the complete Santana discography), only one of the early Santana albums are today necessary, and that is, of course, Abraxas.

Not so Caravanserai, Welcome and Borboletta, and though they have never been champions in terms of numbers of albums sold, they collectively represent sustained vision and Santana's best work. Each are vital for those interested in Carlos Santana's career, one that would sputter soon thereafter (the music would flare to molten intensity at times as Amigos and Moonflower would prove). The result was a perplexing and maddening two-decade slump that did not end until the release of Supernatural, finally a full-force achievement in terms of artistic clarity and mature pop music vision.

One wonders if Carlos Santana will ever create as audaciously again.

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fusion masterpiece and healing music
This is the 1973-era Santana band which was featured on the Japanese "Lotus" triple live album. Jazz singer Leon Thomas was part of this group, and "Welcome" continues the "Caravanserai" album format of instrumental-only and vocal tracks, seamlessly flowing into one another.

Strings, marimba, male/female vocals and multiple keyboards (by Tom Coster and Richard Kermode) are tastefully and creatively employed on selected tracks. This was the most musically proficient Santana ensemble ever - drummer Maitreya Michael Shrieve spurs the groove and improvisations, and guitarist Mahavishnu John McLaughlin (with whom Santana recorded the previous year's "Love Devotion Surrender" album) guests on 'Flame-Sky'. Return To Forever members Joe Farrell-flute and Flora Purim-vocal are also featured on 'When I Look Into Your Eyes' and 'Yours Is The Light'. The album serenely concludes with the John Coltrane composition 'Welcome'. (one previously unreleased bonus track on this CD issue - the Santana/Shrieve/Coster composition 'Mantra'.)

In a similar vein from the following year 1974 is "Illuminations", co-credited to Devadip Carlos Santana and Turiya Alice Coltrane (Santana, McLaughlin, and Coltrane were disciples of Sri Chinmoy during this period). Featuring more jazz personnel such as McLaughlin, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette, it's the most avant-garde and challenging Santana album of all. Start your journey with "Welcome", then try "Lotus" . . .