Pat Martino

Biography

Martino was born Pat Azzara in South Philadelphia. He began playing professionally at the age of 15 after moving to New York City. He resided for a period with Les Paul, and began playing at jazz clubs such as Smalls Paradise. He later moved into a suite in the President Hotel on 48th Street. He would play at Smalls for six months of the year, and then in the summer play at the Club Harlem in Atlantic City.

Martino played and recorded early in his career with artists such as Lloyd Price, Willis Jackson and Eric Kloss. He also worked with jazz organists, including Charles Earland, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Jack McDuff, Don Patterson, Trudy Pitts, Jimmy Smith, Gene Ludwig, Bobby Pierce, and Joey DeFrancesco.

Martino is married to Ayako Asahi Martino, whom he met in Tokyo, Japan, in 1995. They live in Philadelphia.

Martino tours worldwide. He was awarded 2004 Guitar Player of the Year, Down Beat magazine's 2004 Reader's Poll. In 2006, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab reissued his album East! on Ultradisc UHR SACD.

Awards

Musical Approach

Martino states : "There are elements found within an instruments architecture that initiates a continuous source of valuable information. For the guitar there are two in number. The first is the Ma 3rd interval, and the second is the Mi 3rd Interval. Once we view their repetitive information, they begin to appear as a series of automatic functions".

Martino's lines contain chromatic links 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. 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".