There is Carlos Santana - guitar legend and innovator, fusing blues and rock with jazz and Afro-Latin cadence.

There is Rusted Root, a Pittsburgh sextet who spins rootsy rock with Middle Eastern trills, mystical leanings and folds of rhythm thick as a winter blanket.

And then there is reggae - and plenty of it - from the masters: the Original Wailers, Burning Spear, and Toots and the Maytals.

That is the lineup Saturday at The Gorge for the World Music Festival.

Santana, who headlines the event, earlier this year released a two-CD set recorded live at the height of San Francisco’s psychedelic explosion.

“Live At The Fillmore - 1968” finds Santana and his band in their early glory, when they were traipsing across new ground with a raw melding of rock and jazz.

Born and raised in Mexico, Santana was introduced to traditional music by his father, a mariachi violinist. He later began exploring blues and rock in bands that performed along the Tijuana Strip.

He moved to San Francisco in the 1960s and formed a band that performed at Woodstock. Their rendition of “Soul Sacrifice” is considered one of the high points of the event.

Santana would go on to be known for hits such as “Black Magic Woman,” “Oye Como Va,” “Winning” and “Hold On” and was one of three acts from the original Woodstock asked to return for the second incarnation in 1994.

“Santana has been a godsend,” says Jim Donovan, drummer for Rusted Root, now touring with Santana. “He has had us up playing with him nearly every night. His band is ferocious.”

Like Santana, Rusted Root is known for its propensity to jam.

Lead singer Michael Glabicki weaves his vocal extremities with Liz Berlin’s elegant intonations as the band sets layers of mandolin, violin, flute, guitar and percussion atop each other.

“The key to making everything really work well is the simplification of things,” Donovan says. “There’s a lot of layers but if you take apart what everyone is doing and you listen to each instrument by itself, it’s all very simple.”

Donovan says such an approach is similar to that taken in much of African drumming. “They all play really simple parts, but they all add up to one really big grand amazing part. And that’s where a lot of magic happens - when you have all the parts working together.”

The Original Wailers finds several members of Bob Marley’s band forging ahead with the reggae music they helped pioneer.

Aston “Family Man” Barrett and Junior Marvin say Marley took them aside before he died of cancer in 1981 and asked them to continue performing.

Barrett began performing with Marley in the late 1960s and Marvin joined the group in the mid-1970s. These days, they are joined by Al Anderson, Tyrone Downie, Earl “Wia” Lindo and Alvin “Seeco” Patterson - all of whom performed at various times with Marley.

Burning Spear, the name used by reggae artist Winston Rodney, was born in the same Jamaican neighborhood as Marley. During his nearly 30 years performing, Burning Spear has stayed more rooted in traditional reggae, singing of oppression and transcendence through Rastafarianism.

Toots and the Maytals bring more than three decades of the reggae experience with them. Formed in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1962 and fronted by Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, their 1968 tune “Do the Reggay” is usually credited with coining the term reggae.

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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The World Music Festival begins Saturday at 3 p.m. at The Gorge. Tickets are $49.90 and $29.95, available through Ticketmaster. Call (509) 928-4700 for locations or (206) 628-0888 to order by phone.