Musician Jorge Santana, younger brother of Carlos Santana, dies at 68
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Musician Jorge Santana, the younger brother of guitar great and former Bay Area resident Carlos Santana, died on Friday at 68 years old from natural causes.
Much like his brother, he was into music and started played the guitar at the age of 14.
Jorge began playing in San Francisco with a band formed by some high school friends called The Malibus.
They later changed the name to Malo, which translates to "bad" in Spanish. It came from one of the band member's mother who would tell them "todos ustedes son malo!"
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One of the group's biggest hits came in 1972 with the song "Suavecitio," which made the top 20 and the group got to perform on the television show "American Bandstand."
Jorge also played with another band called "The Fania All-Stars" before releasing two solo albums.
Later, he would work with his famous brother, going on tour with him during the 1990s and teaming up for the 1994 album "Santana Brothers."
Jorge was extremely active in the Bay Area and spent a lot of time helping out local charities.
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One in particular was Camp Concord, serving on the board with ABC7 news anchor Dan Ashley.
Jorge would play in Dan's band, which holds yearly fundraisers.
"This is such a sad loss of a very talented, community minded, and kind man who I was proud to call a friend over many years," Ashley said. "We both had a passion to send underserved children to summer camp and a few years ago he joined me on the board of Friends of Camp Concord to help make that happen. Jorge was a gentleman and a very decent human being. It's quite a loss for our community. We always had such terrific conversations, whether in person or on the phone. He was a man of great perspective and great depth and compassion. We also had a wonderful time sharing the stage many, many times when he would join my band. He was a talented and generous musician who had a mastery of the guitar that was a joy to watch."
