Pat Martino Trio, Tokyo, September 29th, 2018
In these pages I have usually reported upon artists I know. I never listened to Pat Martino as I grew up. However, in recent years I started to pay attention to others who wrote about him. It is my loss, that I couldn’t have followed such an artist earlier.
The gig was ecstatic. Pat played with verve and style and guts and genius. From the get go, it was go-ahead jazz, very fast paced and exciting. Within one minute of opening you could hear Pat rip into a solo with passion and style and commitment and grab everyone’s attention. If you want to get an idea of what that means you can always check YouTube or Apple Music. What you will hear is a guitar line which is energetic but complex, and fun. As with the greatest artists, it is all so confidently played that the complex/complicated thing is restructured as the captivating and enervating thing, involving so many twists and turns, but never faltering, and never dull. It is a living, organic thing.
The Pat Martino Trio played six songs, each lasting about 10 minutes, plus an encore. The first three were fast, go-ahead pieces, designed to wow, and they did. I only recognized the third, 'Four on Six' by Wes Montgomery. (I know it not from Wes but the version on Solar by the two great Johns, Messrs Scofield and Abercrombie.) These were followed by a slow, deep [nameless to me!] tune (I’m really cringing at putting this out to the world, showing my complete ignorance), melodic and emotion-affecting. It was certainly a good and necessary musical contrast with all the fire and fury (if that phrase is still allowable for good things). I did catch Pat’s words on cut number 6, the ostensible final one: Mac Tough, a staple I believe. You could see why: it possesses a lovely upbeatness and cheeriness of tone, and it was played with verve and imagination. It had most of the audience whooping out yells of delight, clearly to the delight of Pat and his players. After acknowledging our sounds, Pat smiled and showed us he’d gotten the message by, still seated, raising one index finger and announcing: ‘One more.’ I had hoped for ‘Sunny’, not sure what I got instead, but it was worthy as an encore. I was impressed with the assured complexity of the tune, and the perfect in-synch-ness of his playing with organist Pat Bianchi’s. It was as good a display of musical telepathy as you could ever hear. Just how they were able to synchronize some of those changes was a joy to behold.
Pat did a chord in one of the later songs to segue into the drummer’s solo. You could almost call the chord he played then a death chord it was so startling. It was the signal for the drummer, Carmen Intorre, to come into his own. Which he did. He built things up and didn’t go overboard. This was a trio of guitar, bass and himself playing nice jazz, so nothing too flash or noisy was needed. But he did hit the sticks and slam the drum and brought the mid-section of the song to a dramatic high, so I guess he did pretty damn well all the way through. As a trio they worked incredibly well. It was deep. It was heavy. It was go-ahead and rockin. It swung.
So, my first ever listening in concert to Pat Martino was an experience not to be forgotten. That he was so good, that he was held in awe and high respect was signalled by the huge numbers of fans there to see him play. The Tokyo Cotton Club is a pretty fancy place and it costs, pardon the cliché, a pretty penny, and they have a dress code (!), but it was buzzing with punters who knew this too good an opportunity to miss. It was also our first time to visit the Cotton Club, and I was on my best behaviour. No surreptitious iPhone shots, or liquid shots either. Lasting only an hour and a half, you could always sip on a single beer and wait for school’s out. That’s the way most often for these big name jazz gigs in Tokyo: two shows per night. Raking it in. It’s a money-earner for the club and the artist but it makes things time-regimented and you better sup up once those lights go up. I was ok, actually, with the length of the gig. Being not acquainted with most of the material, even though it was pretty easy to ‘get’, was part of it. Other very small elements played a part, though: the organist was fantastic, but his sounds were a little orchestral or symphonic for my tastes; he created building waves of sound and melodies which washed over us as real waves might, if we were shells... Great, but somehow, for my liking not as ‘street’ as the playing you’ll hear from Joey de Francisco, who really kicks dust and you can hear his knuckles crack as he makes contact with the keys. Also, after a while I began to hear some repeated patterns from the fingers of Pat. He does this thing with the treble E string, a hammer-on/off thing up and down the fretboard. It’s catchy and fun and, because it’s so easy done, one of the less intimidating things he does, but he did that trick about three times, which is two times too often. Hey, but who am I? I know nothing. Literally. I only checked this guy out a few years ago max, and on YouTube of all places. I have zero acquaintance of one of the truly great guitarists of our age, and to see him now at the grand age of 74 playing on fire was a privilege and a wonderment. He also looked like a real gent, in his cool duds and sat perched, Kingfisher-like, on the high stool in the centre of the stage, entertaining us all with his magic. My wife likened him to John McLaughlin, that Pat belonged in the same orbit. In terms of sheer technical mastery I'd have to agree. Let me also expand: 'technical mastery' is sometimes used pejoratively, but I never use it in that way. As Louis Armstrong would put it, and better: Pat Martino has the chops. Beyond that he lives and breathes go-ahead happening jazz guitar-centred music.
The other thing about Pat Martino, of course, is... that... well. two things: (a) he suffered a severe medical emergency many years ago that not only put him out of action but scrubbed his memory banks. He woke up to realize that he had forgotten everything, including how to play the guitar. That he taught himself again how to do so and then climbed back up to the heady heights of brilliance and world recognition is a story which needs to be told and I advise anyone who is interested in music and the power of humans to overcome just about everything that life throws at them to read all about it. Pat Martino's story is quite incredible. (b) Pat Martino is a teacher of music and he has written on his approach and invites players to learn his methods. I don't know much about what it is he writes, but he is highly gifted in terms of his self-expression and is clearly a bit of an Einstein in regard to guitar playing. Read his books, listen to this guy. Pat Martino is a trip!