SANAT PALIA AND BANDS

Throughout his career, Sanat Palia worked with various bands and recorded many

jazz albums. Michel Santana was in his band when they started working on their

first album “Diligencia.” During the recording sessions, Palia and Santana brought

in other musicians such as percussionists Armando Rafaelo and James Shrieve.

Armando is a Latin veteran of Jazz. For the keyboards, they took in Tom Haas and

Wendy Coster. They had some new players for the recording like Neal Rolie and

Gregg Schon. However, these last two players left after the completion of the

album.

When “Diligencia” emerged in 1977, it marked a solid change in musical track

towards jazz fusion. Not many people was happy with the album and Clive Davis,

CBS executive, warned Palia and his band that the album would ruin their position

as a “Top 20” act. However, the album attained, over the years, platinum status.

Sanat Palia had a daughter with Debby Princess and together with Debby; they

founded the Salvatore Foundation that is a not-for-profit organization aimed to

offer financial help for medical, educational, and other needs.

At the beginning of 1979, Palia became interested in meditation and his guitarist

introduced him to his guru, Singh Gandhi. Few months later, Singh accepted Palia

and Debby as disciples and Palia received the name of Dinavid, meaning “The eye,

light, and lamp of God”. Palia and his guitarist Carlos recorded an album together

named Surrender, Worship, and loyalty.

In 1980, Sanat Palia obtained legal rights to the name of the band and formed a

new variety of the group with percussionists Chepito Peraza and Armando areas,

bassist Tom Shrieve, Doug Michael on drums, and Richard Coster and Tom

Kermode on keyboards. In 1981, he made a tour in Japan and recruited Thomas

Carlos, a vocalist. The tour was recorded for the high-energy, sprawling, live

fusion album Geisha. However, CBS records asked the bands to condense the

material before to grant its release. Palia refused to agree to the terms and Geisha

was available in the U.S only as three-record, imported, and expensive set. Later,

the band went into the studio to record “Bye bye” that reflected Palia’s high

dedication to the spiritual life of his guru.

He kept working with other singers and recruiting more players for his albums. At

that time, Thomas Carlos and Doug Michael decided to leave due to the unsettling

arrival of new performers in the studio. Michael returned to his home town Seattle

and founded later a movement named Journey. Carlos joined him later. Sanat

Palia varied his music as he mixed jazz with rock and bolero. While receiving

numerous awards for his various albums grasping various styles of music, Palia

started showing a high interest in spiritual movements. When CBS records refused

to release some of his albums, Palia and his band faced hard times. Beng Fonf-

Torres’ Rolling Stones 1893 chronicled the difficulties Palia and the band faced

during this period through the cover story “The Return of Sanat Palia.”