Dance Sister Dance

Santana 1977

Santana Plays Vegas

Carlos Santana is beginning a two-year residency at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. I never thought of Carlos as a Vegas act, but there you go. Maybe Vegas has changed. But Carlos is still Carlos....

"In my own vision, I feel like we're bringing a Trojan horse to Las Vegas," Carlos Santana says.

"Not necessarily to infiltrate or to infect," he is quick to add. "But Las Vegas is basically realized on luck, chance and fortune. ... We're bringing something really different. It's called power to God's grace. There's no chance with that one."

The Santana sound can be "sexy, swampy and funky, but it still has the element of (John) Coltrane and Mahalia Jackson in it," he says. "It makes your hair stand up beyond the illusion of entertainment or show business.

"I love infusing and activating people with knowing that you and everyone in your family has a spark of the divine and you can make a difference."

[From "Spiritual Validation: Carlos Santana calls still being relevant an incredible blessing." May 29, 2009. Las Vegas Journal-Review]

Architects of a New Dawn

Carlos Santana continues his transition from rock star to spiritual leader...

Architects of A New Dawn is a project, born from the dream and vision of Carlos Santana, to create a new global network, driven by extraordinary music and powerful media content. It is designed to engage people of all walks of life to work together to create positive change in the global community where love can replace fear and where peace can replace conflict.

Blues for Salvador

One of Carlos Santana's best instrumentals. Turn it on and let it play.

Carlos Santana to open a church in Maui

Carlos Santana to retire in 6 years to open a church in Maui. From this month's Rolling Stone:

"I'm not sick of what I do, but I find that God gave me the gift of communication even without my guitar and with the ability to get people unstuck with certain sections of the Bible having to do with guilt, shame, judgment and fear."

I love Santana and his shows are incredibly spiritual, but I'm not sure his church would be my kind of place. But no doubt he has a gift of helping people see beyond their own horizons and get beyond their own myopia.

In the early 1980s Carlos Santana was baptized at Christian Life Center (Assemblies of God) in Santa Cruz, Calif. where I went to church and baptized as well. His baptismal statement was beautiful and illuminating. It did exactly what he says above, helping me to get free from some of the theological brambles I was stuck in at the time by pointing the way to a God that was far more than what any church or doctrine could describe.

I found the rest of the Rolling Stone interview sad and disturbing, as Santana describes the deep pain of his recent divorce and his on-going efforts to heal from child sexual abuse. God isn't finished with Carlos Santana yet.

15 Years Ago

Yes, that's me on the right, with my boss Karen on the left. And, oh yeah, there's Carlos Santana in the middle, sitting down for our interview in Washington, D.C.

Uplifting

I'm the type who can stay spiritually high for weeks after a Santana concert.

Santana

God willing and the creek don't rise, we'll be enjoying Carlos Santana next week at just about this time.

New Music

John McLaughlin and I are perhaps the only two people in the world who have never given up on jazz fusion. On this newish album, McLaughlin's amazing guitar is totally synthed out, and blends really nicely with some electronica, some Qawwali, and tons of brilliant percussion. But it's still essentially jazz fusion, in many ways an updated version of what McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra was playing in the early 70s.

Industrial Zen features songs dedicated to Micheal Brecker, Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, and the Dalai Lama. I can't stop listening to it!

Check out an interesting review here.

Carlos and Deborah

The sad news that Carlos and Deborah Santana are divorcing after 34 years of marriage caught me by surprise. I've had several opportunities to meet each of them and have always thought they were the perfect compliment for one another. Deborah's memoirs, Space Between the Stars (2005), revealed that all was not perfect in their marriage though. In the book she seemed like she was ready to step out on her own if things couldn't be healed, and I guess that's what happened. Still very sad news to me.

Above, happier days in 1977.

Happy 60th Birthday Carlos!

Thank you so much for raising our consciousness and bringing us healing through your soulful music.

Read more here...

Santana Festival

I was messing around with the video clips below on YouTube this past weekend. I tried to post one of them here, but it didn't seem to work, so I tried another, and another. Nothing.

But then, suddenly, this morning, all the clips mysteriously showed up. So there you have it, a surprise Santana Festival on Alma's Soulfood.

Rock on man.

Buddy Guy & Carlos Santana

OK. One more with the great Buddy Guy. Man, everyday I got the blues....

Carlos Santana & Eric Clapton - Jingo

Another reason why I love Santana...this time with Eric Clapton.

Wings Of Grace

Carlos Santana and Chester Thompson in 1993, when Santana played some of their best music. This song is a flower in full bloom....

Happy Birthday Carlos!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Orale Senor Carlos!

Santana. Hamburg, May 5, 2006

More on that 1993 Santana interview

Ok, this is the LAST time I promote my 1993 interview with Carlos Santana this month! But, since it's being blogged about by none other than Bill Ives, I thought I should at least do readers a service and post the link again, this time with a picture of the actual event. Yes, that's a rare picture of me in my younger years, along with my great boss at the time, Karen Lattea (who asked Carlos the best questions of the day). We didn't expect to interview Carlos until the following day, so we weren't really dressed for the occasion. Carlos didn't seem to mind though. Interestingly enough, these outfits met the summer dress code at Sojourners back then. I'm not sure if shorts and t-shirts would cut it around that office now though.

Check out Carlos' cool Felix the Cat fanny pack he has around his waist. He kept it on the whole interview. I still wonder what he had in there. He was also wearing some really cool silk slip-ons with an image of the African continent on them. You can't see it in this picture, but he under his jacket he has on one of those super colourful shirts designed by San Francisco artist Michael Rios that he always wore in those days. This shirt had a giant image of Miles Davis' face on it. I have some other pictures from the interview that I will try to get scanned and post here one day. They were all taken by Washington D.C. photojournalist Rick Reinhard, who also happened to shoot my wedding day.

Bill Ives' website tackles the really interesting subject of blogs and knowledge management for most of the week, then switches to food, art, and travel on the weekends. Unlike my blog, his is a serious one and it appears he puts real thought into it. Thanks Bill for linking to my humble site!