Devadip Carlos Santana - Oneness: Silver Dreams - Golden Reality (1979)

Dan:

Oneness: Silver Dreams - Golden Reality is easy to overlook, given its impressive predecessors - Caravanserai, Welcome, and Borboletta. To begin with, the album is attributed to Devadip Carlos Santana, not the Santana band. Carlos had only used this name once before, on Illuminations, a 1974 collaboration with Alice Coltrane. He would use it once more on Swing of Delight (1980), but he eventually lost faith in Sri Chinmoy, the guru who had given him (and his wife Deborah, who became Urmila) their spiritual names.

Oneness finds Devadip at his most spiritual, judging by the Buddhas on the album cover alone. Inside, the album sleeves contain similar artwork. This should not scare off fans of Santana's earlier albums. His guitar is featured on key tracks throughout, but guest musicians account for much of the album's distinction. For instance, Urmila offers the poignant narration on "I Am Free," accompanied by Clare Fischer on Fender Rhodes. The main vocalist, Greg Walker, appears on three of the tracks, and Saunders King delivers a stunning rendition of "Silver Dreams, Golden Smiles," again with Fischer's backing. Several tracks are less than two minutes long.

Despite the excellent playing on individual tracks, it's best to listen to this album in its entirety. In this respect, it follows a common prog pattern wherein the whole album takes precedence over its parts. For example, Urmila's 1:25 minute recitation on "I Am Free" would make no sense on its own. Neither would Walker's chant on the opening track, "The Chosen Hour." Indeed, the first six tracks all flow together, forming their own identity of "oneness."

There are plenty of rhythmic sections that we've come to expect from Santana albums, and while the guitar is positioned to serve the narrative, it also shines in the solo spotlight. For example, the opening passages of "Oneness" use Santana's' lower strings to play melodically in front of the modal chords sustained by organ and bass. Santana nuts can get their fill on this track alone and appreciate that it's also the longest track at 6:21 minutes. "Oneness" is followed by the funky "Life is Just a Passing Parade," which is obviously autobiographical for Santana. The closing "Song for Devadip" returns to soaring guitar territory as if to remind us that spirituality does not preempt solid rock and roll.

As the 1970s came to an end, Santana albums would continue on for another four decades. Blessings and Miracles (2021) is the latest of approximately 60 albums in the series, although it's hard to count them all amidst the reissues, compilations and live recordings. It's my hope that Santana's magical albums of the 1970s are not overlooked. 

Steve:

In the early 1990s, I picked up a vinyl copy of Oneness, fairly certain that at least bits of it would be familiar to me. I remembered the album cover from my childhood, but not all of the songs. The two memorable tracks were "Cry of the Wilderness" and "Song for Devadip", both instrumentals that are fueled by Devadip's guitar themes, and brought to completion through his unique gift for soloing around those themes.

I quickly found, however, that (as Dan said above) Oneness is clearly designed to be listened to as a whole, or at least as two unified vinyl sides. As with Borboletta, soulful vocal features sit side by side with both guitar-based instrumentals and scene-setting atmospheric tracks, often graced with wordless chanting.  

At this time, Devadip clearly felt comfortable splitting his artistic identity into two parallel parts - the more hit-oriented Latin rock of his band albums and the more exploratory jazz/rock of his solo work. Todd Rundgren had a similar split personality a few years prior, but the focus was reversed, where his solo work was the more pop-oriented and his band Utopia satisfied his more progressive urges. Eventually Todd merged both personas into the pop realm as progressive rock became less commercially relevant, and Devadip eventually did the same. 

Progressive rock fans would miss a lot if they chose to judge Carlos/Devadip as merely a classic pop/rock act, while ignoring the series of groundbreaking records he made in the 1970s.