© -
Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“The guitar has its own
mystique. The most ancient of instruments, it is the most pervasive in
contemporary music. Those who mastered its mysteries have discovered unlimited
application for the guitar’s acoustic and electric personalities.”
- Gary Giddins
“[Pat Martino]… is a guitarist who can rework simple material into sustained
improvisations of elegant and accessible fire; even when he plays licks, they sound
plausibly exciting.
Although seldom recognized as
an influence, he has been a distinctive and resourceful figure in Jazz guitar
for many years, and his fine technique and determination have inspired many
players.”
- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin
Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.
“Pat Martino plays more than
just notes. He plays his personality, his insights. Of Pat it can be honestly
stated that his style is immediately recognizable.”
- Kent Hazen
There’s a modern
adage which states: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
When it came to
the impression he made on Les Paul, a superb technical player and one of
creators of the modern electric guitar sound, if would seem that Pat Martino
didn’t need a second chance:
“Some years ago I
was playing an engagement in Atlantic City and a young lad, accompanied by his
parents, came backstage to meet me and request my autograph. When the lad said
he was learning guitar I handed him mine and asked that he play something.
Well, what came out of that guitar was unbelievable. "Learning," he
said!!! The thought that entered my mind at the time was that perhaps I should
take lessons from him ... his dexterity and cleanliness were amazing and his
picking style was absolutely unique. He held his pick as one would hold a demitasse.
Pinky extended, very polite.
The politeness
disappeared when pick met string as what happened then was not timid but very
definite. As is obvious, I was very impressed and the memory of this lad stuck
with me. Although I lost track of him I figured that sooner or later I was bound
to hear of him again. All that talent was not to be buried in obscurity.
Several years
later I began hearing reports of a young guitarist playing in the New York area who was really scaring other
musicians with his ability and musicianship. I tracked him down to a club in Harlem , and aside from the fact that the reports
of his being a great guitarist were not exaggerated, I found that this was the
same lad who had visited me in Atlantic City .
Now grown up, and
with the extra years of practice and experience, he had grown into a musical
giant. His name was Pat Martino. (As a side-note, a prominent guitarist told me
recently that on his first visit to New York he had gone to the Harlem club where Pat was appearing. His thought
at the time was that if Pat represented the type of competition he faced — and
Pat not even well known — how was he to surpass or even equal that as well as enduring the other obstacles facing a proposed career in music.) …
Listen to … [his]
music and be your own judge but it you happen to a guitarist don't be
discouraged. Don't slash your wrists and pray for a decent burial; just
practice a lot and perhaps someday someone (possibly Pat) will be writing liner
notes for you.” [Les Paul, June, 1970, liner notes to Desperado, Prestige PR
7795; OJCCD 397]
Pat made a similar,
first impression on Dan Morgenstern , a Jazz literary luminary who just recently retired as the
Director of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University :
“Pat Martino is a bad cat. ...
He is an original,
his own man, and his abilities are extraordinary from both a strictly playing
and general musical standpoint: great speed; marvelous articulation no matter
how fast the fingers fly; an ear for harmony that feeds ideas to those fingers
at a speed to match; a sense of form that imposes order on all that facility; a
singing tone, and tremendous swing …. [Insert notes to Pat Martino Live, Muse
5026]
Or how about the
impression Pat made on the distinguished Jazz author and critic, Gary Giddins.
“[The late Jazz
trumpeter and bandleader] Red Rodney once described artistic progress like
this: ‘You go along and then all of a sudden, bump, you rise to another
plateau, and you work real hard and then, bump, you rise to another one.’
Pat Martino’s
talent rises to a new plateau regularly and thanks to his prolific recording
career, those bumps have been captured on an imposing series of discs. His
records are not only consistent; they evolve one to the next. …
Perhaps the first
thing one responds to in Pat’s music is commitment. He plays like he means it.
One aspect of his
style consists of multi-noted patterns, plucked with tremendous facility (and
time) over the harmonic contour. The notes are never throwaways; the patterns
take on their own mesmerizing force, serving to advance the pieces as
judiciously as the melodic variations of which Pat is a master. ….
Pat has very
clearly honed his immense technique closely to what he most personally wants to
express. His music is private, but richly communicative; it commands attention
with its integrity – it does not call attention to itself with excessive volume
or gimmicks.
Pat Martino
doesn’t have time to jive, he’s a musician.” [Liner notes to Pat
Martino/Consciousness Muse LP 5039; paragraphing modified]
And Mark Gardner,
the accomplished Jazz author and journalist, was also duly impressed by his
first experience with Pat when he wrote these comments and observations about
him and his music in the liner notes to Pat Martino: Strings! [Prestige
7547]:
“Since Charlie
Christian first plugged in his amplifier and revolutionized jazz guitar in the
late 1930s each subsequent decade has witnessed the emergence of a handful of
new string stylists. Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney, Billy Bauer, Chuck Wayne and
Oscar Moore were the dominant voices of the 'forties.
And in the
'fifties Tal Farlow really came into his own to be followed by Jim Hall, Kenny
Burrell, Johnny Smith and Wes Montgomery. The 'sixties in turn have produced
Grant Green, Bola Sete, Gabor Szabo, George Benson and now Pat Martino.
To bracket Martino
with the foregoing list of great jazz plectrists warrants some weighty evidence
in his favor. After all he is only twenty-three years old and the enclosed
sides are the first real jazz sides to be released under his leadership. Which
is precisely where the proof of my assertion lies— within this album.
It is quite
plainly demonstrated on all five tracks that Pat Martino has already conceived
a style of his own. To arrive at a personal mode of expression so young
requires more than heavy chops and good taste, it calls for imagination, the
sifting of one's emotional and intellectual resources into an abstract form
with discipline. The guitarist has passed through this inner process of
self-realization which is essential for every artist before he can begin to
create works of lasting importance. Pat is not a 'natural talent' because no
such thing exists. He has had to work and work hard to get where he is.
As alto
saxophonist Sonny Criss remarked recently, 'A lot of people say that Bird was a
born genius. That's wrong. He wasn't born with anything except the ability to
breathe. Unless you really apply yourself nothing's ever going to happen.'
What has happened
to Martino, a young man with an exciting future ahead, is the result of the
sort of application Sonny spoke of.”
Here’s a video
tribute to Pat on which he plays his original composition Willow accompanied by Eddie
Green on electric piano, Tyrone brown on bass and Sherman Ferguson on drums. If
you haven’t heard Pat play guitar before, perhaps your first impression will
match that of Les Paul, Gary Giddins, Dan Morgenstern , and Mark Gardner. If so, you’d be in very good
company, indeed.