Santana Return to commercial success
 A collaboration with John Coltrane's widow, Alice Coltrane - Illuminations followed. The album delved into avant-garde esoteric free jazz, Eastern Indian and classical influences with other ex-Miles Davis sidemen Jack DeJohnette and Dave Holland. Soon after, Santana replaced his band members again. This time Kermode, Thomas and Rauch departed from the group and were replaced by vocalist Leon Patillo and returning bassist David Brown. He also recruited soprano saxophonist, Jules Broussard to the line up. The band recorded one studio album Borboletta which was released in 1974. Drummer Ndugu Leon Chancler later joined the band as a replacement for Michael Shrieve, who left to pursue a solo career.
By this time the Bill Graham management had assumed the affairs of the group. Graham was critical of Santana's direction into jazz and felt he needed to concentrate on getting Santana back into the charts with a commercial sound, especially with the edgy, street-wise ethnic sound that had made them famous. Santana himself was seeing that the group's direction was alienating many fans. Although the albums and performances were given generally good reviews by critics in jazz and fusion circles, sales had plummeted.
Santana along with Tom Coster, producer David Rubinson, and Chancler formed yet another version of Santana, adding vocalist Greg Walker. The album Amigos was released in 1976 which featured the songs Dance, Sister, Dance and Let It Shine and had a strong funk and Latin sound. The album also received considerable airplay on FM album oriented rock stations with the instrumental Europa (Earths Cry Heavens Smile) and re-introduced Santana back into the charts. Rolling Stone magazine ran a second cover story on Santana entitled; Santana Comes Home.
The following albums through the late seventies followed the same formula, although with several lineup changes. Amidst the ever-revolving door of personnel who came and left the band was percussionist Raul Rekow, who joined in early 1977 and remains to this day. Most notable of the band's commercial efforts of this era was a cover version of the 1960s Zombies hit, She's Not There on the 1977 release, Moonflower.
The relative success of the band's albums in this era allowed Santana to pursue a solo career funded by CBS. First, Oneness; Silver Dreams, Golden Reality in 1979 and The Swing of Delight in 1980, which featured some of his musical heroes; Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams from Miles Davis' legendary quintet of the 1960s.
The pressures and temptations of being a high profile rock musician and requisites of the spiritual lifestyle which guru Sri Chinmoy and his followers demanded, were great sources of conflict to Santana's and his marriage. He was becoming increasingly disillusioned with Chinmoy's often unreasonable rules imposed on his life, one being his refusal to allow Santana and Deborah to start a family. It became apparent later on that Santana's fame was being used to help the guru's public visibility. Santana and Deborah eventually ended their relationship with Chinmoy in 1982.
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