Welcome (Santana album) explained

Welcome
Type:Album
Artist:Santana
Cover:Welcome_Album.jpg
Border:yes
Recorded:April to June 1973
Genre:Jazz fusion
Length:50:39
Label:Columbia
Producer:Carlos Santana, Mike Shrieve, Tom Coster
Prev Title:Caravanserai
Prev Year:1972
Next Title:Lotus
Next Year:1974

Welcome is the fifth studio album by Santana, released in 1973. It followed the jazz-fusion formula that the preceding Caravanserai had inaugurated, but with an expanded and different lineup this time. Gregg Rolie had left the band along with Neal Schon to form Journey, and they were replaced by Tom Coster, Richard Kermode and Leon Thomas, along with guest John McLaughlin, who had collaborated with Carlos Santana on Love Devotion Surrender. Welcome also featured John Coltrane's widow, Alice, as a pianist on the album's opening track, "Going Home" and Flora Purim (the wife of Airto Moreira) on vocals. This album was far more experimental than the first four albums, and Welcome did not produce any hit singles.

In 2003, the album was re-released with a bonus track, "Mantra", described by AllMusic reviewer Thom Jurek as "a killer improv tune with a ferocious bass solo by Rauch and insane drumming by Shrieve."[1]

Reception

Writing for Rolling Stone, Robert Palmer called Welcome "the most rhythmically satisfying rock recording since Professor Longhair's," and noted that the rhythm section is "at its loosest and best." He commented: "There may not be another 'Black Magic Woman' here, but there is enough of the old Latin fire to satisfy the fans, as well as a promising expansion of sources and resources."

Critic Robert Christgau stated that the album "proves that a communion of multipercussive rock and transcendentalist jazz can move the unenlightened--me, for instance. Good themes, good playing, good beat, and let us not forget good singing."

In a review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek wrote: "Welcome is a jazz record with rock elements, not a rock record that flirted with jazz and Latin musical forms... Welcome was... ahead of its time as a musical journey and is one of the more enduring recordings the band ever made. This is a record that pushes the envelope even today and is one of the most inspired recordings in the voluminous Santana oeuvre."

Jeff Winbush of All About Jazz described the album as "the summit of Santana's jazz fusion era," and remarked: "The secret weapon is Michael Shrieve's energetic drumming and the dual keyboard attack of Coster and Kermode. They push and pull Santana to go beyond and stop holding back."

Track listing

2023 Remastered Japanese SACD edition with both stereo and quadraphonic mixes

No bonus tracks

Personnel

Band members

Additional musicians

Production

Charts

Chart (1973–1974)Peak
position
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[2] 19
Italian Albums (Musica e Dischi)[3] 4
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[4] 11

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Santana: Welcome [Bonus Track] ]. Thom . Jurek . AllMusic . October 13, 2022.
  2. Book: Kent, David. David Kent (historian). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. illustrated. Australian Chart Book. St Ives, N.S.W.. 1993. 0-646-11917-6.
  3. Web site: Classifiche. Musica e Dischi. it. June 6, 2024. Set "Tipo" on "Album". Then, in the "Artista" field, search "Santana".
  4. Book: Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005. Oricon Entertainment. Roppongi, Tokyo. 2006. 4-87131-077-9. ja.