CARLOS Santana is one of the greatest guitarist of all time. Up there with the best, he lit up the music scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, who pioneered a fantastic and percussive fusion of rock and Latin American jazz. During the past five decades, Santana has sold more 100 million records, won 10 Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammys. This week Carlos has released his new EP In Search of Mona Lisa, on Concord Records, three spellbinding new songs, that transport listeners inside a magical and deeply personal experience he had when he visited the Louvre Museum at Paris for the first time and set his eyes on Leonardo da Vinci’s beguiling artistic masterpiece. All it took was one look into the implacable eyes of the Mona Lisa for him to feel as though something strange and powerful was taking place. As he recalls, “I heard her say to me, ‘Hi.’ It was stunning, and I didn’t know what to say back, so I just said, ‘Hi.’ And then she said, ‘Do you remember me? When we were lovers in another time?’ It was the most incredible occurrence, and in a way, it was kind of perfect that I had never been to the Louvre before, because this might not have happened at another time. I had to be who I am now, knowing that God is everywhere and that He was saying, ‘I love you,’ by sending me this message of inspiration and visualisation.” The experience came flooding back to Carlos months later, when he awoke from a dream with the lyrics to what would become the songs In Search of Mona Lisa and Do You Remember Me.