Santana has exhibited an uncanny ability to recover from the loss of veteran participants and to absorb and profit from new blood all through its history, often following up such situations with highly successful recordings as in the case of 1968/69's metamorphosis from the Santana Blues band to Santana yielding the band's first recording Santana, and a few years later the defection of Greg Rolie and Neil Schon after Caravanserai which eventually give rise to the Carlos' solo project with John McLaughlin , Love, Devotion, & Surrender, and subsequently Santana's Welcome.

It has always been paramount, however, for Carlos to have a very close musical bond with his keyboardist regardless of everything else, for so much of the Santana sound is based on the sound of the organ and because Carlos develops so much of his music in collaboration with this instrumentalist. Whether that keyboardist has been famed charter member Greg Rolie, or the 1970's very gifted Tom Coster, or the longest-tenured Chester Thompson who continues to hold down that spot today after twenty years' service, that guitar-keyboard liaison has played a significant role in the continued success and evolution of Santana.

In the mid-1970's, Santana underwent numerous changes in drummers, percussionists, vocalists, and bassists and there was a certain unevenness to some of their live performances. In addition there was a mounting pressure from their record company to record more radio-friendly- i.e. "the old Santana"- music rather than the more jazz/fusion-oriented repertoire, which had started with Caravanserai in 1972 and continued for the next few years.

The 1977 release of double album Moonflower came out of this environment and demonstrated once more that out of change and occasional turmoil Santana could still emerge triumphant. Moonflower would go on to sell more than ten million copies worldwide and in the process re-establish Santana as a major music force in the U.S. and throughout the world.

In many respects Moonflower can be viewed as the collaborative product of Carlos Santana and keyboardist Tom Coster, with Tom having a hand in the composing and/or arranging on almost every song. A very gifted composer, Tom Coster had an almost uncanny ability to write music so perfectly fitting for Carlos, emphasizing his [Carlos'] strong melodic sense along with his love for the musically dramatic. In addition, Coster was a superb soloist capable of reeling off heady jazz/fusion or earthy blues rock- sometimes in the same solo!

Moonflower was the product of a live performance at London's Hammersmith-Odeon in 1976 and a follow-up studio session in 1977. It is a rather stunning tribute to Carlos Santana's dominant spirit regardless of setting or circumstance and further testimony that the Santana legend was not only intact but also even adding to its already-fabled lore.

The BBC-televised London concert shows Tom Coster surrounded by a battery of keyboards, and the continuing Sri Chinmoy disciple Carlos dressed in white and clearly enjoying the new members who included drummer Graham Lear, bassist Pablo Tellez, and new blood conguero Raul Rekow, the latter two having made their debut on 1976's release of Festival. A spirited Carlos joins in on congas and timbales on Dance Sister Dance and Soul Sacrifice/Heads, Hands, & Feet that featured a rousing drum solo from Graham playing on a double bass drum kit.

The performance of the Coster-Santana composition Europa is pure and vintage Santana and clearly a delight to the wildly enthusiastic audience. The entire program, much of which was included in Moonflower along with Greg Walker's dubbed vocals, was added proof that in live performance Santana has few peers.

Special mention must be made of the contribution to both the live and the studio recordings by percussionist Raul Rekow just then beginning a tenure with Santana which continues to this day. A student of the Afro-Cuban tradition and a featured performer in Malo, the exceptional San Francisco band led by Carlos' brother Jorge in the 'Seventies, Raul was mentored and inspired by the inestimable Armando Peraza. He has since gone on to develop his own distinctive and much-admired style that is in such clear evidence throughout Moonflower. And which has established him today as one of the finest congueros in the world.

The studio session, which included new bassist David Margen- he of the Jaco Pastorius-Paul Jackson school of bass playing -who would add much to Santana in succeeding years, and timbalero supreme Pete Escovedo, surprised many with the band's imaginative cover of the Zombies 1960's hit She's Not There, a song which would become an instant and very popular addition to the Santana performance repertoire, continuing right into the present.

Moonflower is a veritable treat for Santana fans including as it does new renditions of Santana stalwarts such as Savor, Soul Sacrifice, Dance Sister Dance, Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen and Europa alongside new compositions such as Coster's Flor D'Luna (Moonflower)- another splendid example of the Coster-Santana symbiosis -and Carlos' Transcendance, as well as his Toussaint L'Overture, a tribute to that historic leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution.

For those relatively new Santana fans who now number in the millions, Moonflower will be a most enjoyable revelation showing that the band's past has been every bit as glorious as its present; for longtime Santana followers, it will be a welcome return visitor, a reminder and further proof of why they and Santana have been an item all these years.