Pat Martino
Encyclopedia
Pat Martino is an Italian-American jazz
guitarist
and composer
within the post bop, fusion
, mainstream jazz
, soul jazz
and hard bop
idioms.
. He began playing professionally at age 15. Martino played and recorded early in his career with musicians such as Willis Jackson and Eric Kloss
. He also worked with many jazz organists, such as Charles Earland
, Jack McDuff
, Trudy Pitts
, Jimmy Smith
, Gene Ludwig
, Don Patterson
, Richard "Groove" Holmes
. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Martino made many recordings as a sideman and also under his own name.
In 1980, Martino underwent surgery as the result of a nearly fatal brain aneurysm
. The surgery left him with amnesia, leaving him, among other things, without any memory of the guitar and his musical career. With the help of friends, computers, and his old recordings, Martino made a recovery http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article_print.php?id=764#health, and learned to play the guitar again.
His improvisation method, "Conversion to Minor", is often mistakenly thought to be based upon using exclusively minor systems for soloing. In fact, the system involves conceptualising chord progressions in terms of the relative minor chord/scale, but in practice this seems to be more a way for organising the fretboard, rather than justifying playing certain tones in terms of whether they are "correct" or not. Martino's lines contain chromatic notes outside any particular IIm7 chord that might be conceptualised over a chord progression; even in the examples he provides in his books and instructional videos. Indeed, on his bulletin board he has stated that he formulated the system more as a way to explain his playing, rather than as something to use to create music. In his own words, "although the analysis of some of my recorded solos have been referred to as modal, personally I’ve never operated in that way. I’ve always depended upon my own melodic instinct, instead of scale like formulas".
Martino's return to music started once again with the 1987 recording The Return. In 2006, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
reissued Martino's album East! on Ultradisc UHR SACD
. Martino tours worldwide. He was awarded 2004 Guitar Player of the Year, Downbeat Magazine's 2004 Reader's Poll.
Martino's new release "Live at Blues Alley" (on APM Records, executive producer Darryl J. Brodzinski) will be released on October 11, 2011.
Live at Blues Alley
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
within the post bop, fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
, mainstream jazz
Mainstream jazz
Mainstream jazz is a genre of jazz music that was first used in reference to the playing styles around the 1950s of musicians like Buck Clayton among others; performers who once heralded from the era of big band swing music who did not abandon swing for bebop, instead performing the music in...
, soul jazz
Soul jazz
Soul jazz is a development of jazz incorporating strong influences from blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues in music for small groups, often an organ trio featuring a Hammond organ.- Overview :Soul jazz is often associated with hard bop. Mark C...
and hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
idioms.
Biography
Martino was born Pat Azzara in South PhiladelphiaSouth Philadelphia
South Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south, and the Schuylkill River to the west.-History:...
. He began playing professionally at age 15. Martino played and recorded early in his career with musicians such as Willis Jackson and Eric Kloss
Eric Kloss
Eric Kloss is an American jazz saxophonist.Blind since birth, Kloss first played professionally in the Pittsburgh area in the 1960s, and played with Pat Martino in 1965; later that year he made his first recordings at age 16 for Prestige Records...
. He also worked with many jazz organists, such as Charles Earland
Charles Earland
Charles Earland was an American jazz composer, organist, and saxophonist in the soul jazz idiom.-Biography:...
, Jack McDuff
Jack McDuff
"Brother" Jack McDuff was an American jazz organist and organ trio bandleader who was most prominent during the hard bop and soul jazz era of the 1960s, often performing with an organ trio.-Career:...
, Trudy Pitts
Trudy Pitts
Trudy Pitts , born Gertrude E. Pitts, was an American soul jazz keyboardist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was known primarily for playing the Hammond B3 organ.-Biography:...
, Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith (musician)
Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...
, Gene Ludwig
Gene Ludwig
Gene Ludwig was an American jazz and rhythm and blues organist, who recorded as a leader as well as a sideman for Sonny Stitt, Arthur Prysock, Scott Hamilton, Bob DeVos, and Leslie West, and others...
, Don Patterson
Don Patterson (organist)
Don Patterson was an American jazz organist.Patterson played piano from childhood and was heavily influenced by Erroll Garner in his youth. In 1956, he switched to organ after hearing Jimmy Smith play the instrument...
, Richard "Groove" Holmes
Richard Holmes (organist)
Richard Arnold "Groove" Holmes was an American jazz organist who performed in the hard bop and soul jazz genre...
. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Martino made many recordings as a sideman and also under his own name.
In 1980, Martino underwent surgery as the result of a nearly fatal brain aneurysm
Aneurysm
An aneurysm or aneurism is a localized, blood-filled balloon-like bulge in the wall of a blood vessel. Aneurysms can commonly occur in arteries at the base of the brain and an aortic aneurysm occurs in the main artery carrying blood from the left ventricle of the heart...
. The surgery left him with amnesia, leaving him, among other things, without any memory of the guitar and his musical career. With the help of friends, computers, and his old recordings, Martino made a recovery http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article_print.php?id=764#health, and learned to play the guitar again.
His improvisation method, "Conversion to Minor", is often mistakenly thought to be based upon using exclusively minor systems for soloing. In fact, the system involves conceptualising chord progressions in terms of the relative minor chord/scale, but in practice this seems to be more a way for organising the fretboard, rather than justifying playing certain tones in terms of whether they are "correct" or not. Martino's lines contain chromatic notes outside any particular IIm7 chord that might be conceptualised over a chord progression; even in the examples he provides in his books and instructional videos. Indeed, on his bulletin board he has stated that he formulated the system more as a way to explain his playing, rather than as something to use to create music. In his own words, "although the analysis of some of my recorded solos have been referred to as modal, personally I’ve never operated in that way. I’ve always depended upon my own melodic instinct, instead of scale like formulas".
Martino's return to music started once again with the 1987 recording The Return. In 2006, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab is a company known as an innovator in the production of audiophile-quality sound recordings. All releases are advertised as being produced from the first-generation analog master recordings, and using proprietary technology, which MFSL claims allows for improved sound...
reissued Martino's album East! on Ultradisc UHR SACD
SACD
SACD, founded as Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques on 7 March 1829, is a French collecting society, undertaking collective rights management for authors...
. Martino tours worldwide. He was awarded 2004 Guitar Player of the Year, Downbeat Magazine's 2004 Reader's Poll.
Martino's new release "Live at Blues Alley" (on APM Records, executive producer Darryl J. Brodzinski) will be released on October 11, 2011.
Albums
- Pat Martino (1966), VanguardVanguard RecordsVanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
- unreleased LP - El Hombre (1967), PrestigePrestige RecordsPrestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
- Strings! (1967), Prestige
- East! (1968), Prestige
- Baiyina (The Clear Evidence) (1968) , Prestige
- DesperadoDesperado (Pat Martino album)Desperado is a 1970 post-bop jazz album by Pat Martino.“A key album in the shift in Pat Martino's sound at the end of the 60s -- with one foot in the soul jazz camp in which he got his start, and the other in the freer, open-minded style he used a lot in the 70s!”-Criticism:Jazz critic Scott Yanow...
(1970), Prestige - Footprints (1972), 32 Jazz
- The Visit (1972), CobblestoneCobblestone RecordsCobblestone Records was an American jazz record label.Cobblestone had two successive incarnations. The early one was in 1968-69 as a singles label, subsidiary of Buddah Records...
- Live! (1972), MuseMuse RecordsMuse Records was an American record label which released jazz and blues music.Muse was founded in the early 1970s by Joe Fields, who had previously worked as an executive for Prestige Records in the 1960s...
- Head & Heart: Consciousness/Live (1972), 32 Jazz
- Essence (1973), Muse
- Consciousness (1974), Muse
- Starbright (1976), Warner Bros.Warner Bros. RecordsWarner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
- Joyous Lake (1976), Warner Bros.
- Exit (1977), Muse - MR 5075, recorded February 10, 1976
- The Return (1987), Muse
- The Maker (1994), Evidence
- Interchange (1994), Muse
- Night Wings (1996), Muse
- Cream (1997), 32 Jazz
- All Sides Now (1997), Blue NoteBlue Note RecordsBlue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
- Stone Blue (1998), Blue Note - with Joyous Lake
- Fire Dance (1998), Mythos
- Comin' and Goin': Exit & the Return (1999)
- First Light (1999), 32 Jazz - compilation album of Joyous Lake and Starbright
- Impressions (1999), Camden
- Givin' Away the Store, Vol. 3 (2000), 32 Jazz
- The Philadelphia ExperimentThe Philadelphia Experiment (album)The Philadelphia Experiment is the self-titled album resulting from a collaborative project including Uri Caine , Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Christian McBride...
The Philadelphia Experiment (2001), Ropeadope - Live at Yoshi's (2001), Blue Note
- Think Tank (2003), Blue Note
- Timeless Pat Martino (2003), Savoy Jazz
- Starbright/Joyous Lake (2006), Collectables
- Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery (2006), Blue Note
Live at Blues Alley
External links
- Pat Martino's official website
- Pat Martino on All About Jazz
- Martino Unstrung (2007)