Welcome (Santana album)

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."

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."

DownBeat reviewer Eric Kriss gave the release 3 stars. He wrote, "Santana changes musical temperament like a chameleon on amphetamines . . . With so many different musicians, the end product is bound to be a mixed bag —some good, some bad — and that's what we have here". Kriss praises the track "Welcome" and singles out Flora Purim's contribution on "Yours is the Light".

Critic Robert Christgau stated that the album "proves that a communion of multipercussive rock and transcendentalist jazz can move the unenlightened--me, for instance.