1 Uptown Down 4:25
2 Stone Blue 6:46
3 With All The People 9:15
4 13 To Go 7:27
5 Boundaries 8:09
6 Never Say Goodbye 3:40
7 Mac Tough 6:13
8 Joyous Lake 13:26
9 Two Weighs Out 0:33

Guitar – Pat Martino
Drums, Percussion – Kenwood Dennard
Electric Bass – James Genus
Keyboards – Delmar Brown
Tenor Saxophone – Eric Alexander

The guitar master is at it again on this collection of original tunes. Mixing up bop and funk with heavy doses of pop, he offers up a very listenable album with lots of character. Standout tracks include the fat beat of "Mac Tough" and the evocative "With All The People." --- Tim Sheridan, Rovi

One could viably look at the recordings of renascent guitar hero Pat Martino's recordings of the last few years and pose the musical question: will the real Martino stand up? His Muse releases showed an artist in recovery from his life- and music-threatening brain aneurysm operation of 1980, and his 1996 album The Miracle may be his boldest complete effort yet in the post-op years. Last year's Blue Note debut, All Sides Now, was an odd hit-and-miss affair, a set of dialogues with guitarists with whom he didn't always have much to talk about with. He gets along well with the musicians on his newest album, a quasi-reunion with drummer Kenwood Dennard and keyboardist Delmar Brown, who played with him on his legendary 1976 album Joyous Lake.

Joined here by the admirable tenor saxist Eric Alexander and reliable bassist James Genus, the group navigates through a set of Martino originals that revisit his own corner of the fusion landscape. Mostly, the playing is intense-Martino's own, instantly identifiable style, the eloquent, clean-toned scramble-and the material builds off its built-in tensions, as in the opening "Uptown Down," the fast little postlude "Two Weighs Out," and the title track. The breezy tonalities of "With All the People" may veer a bit too close to smooth jazz for comfort, but the lyricism of his ballad "Never Say Goodbye" is darkly sweet.

Ironically, Brown's overly digital sounds now sound dated, in this age when the raw beauties of older keyboard sonorities are the rage. What sounds timeless here is the leader, wailing with a kind of concurrent wisdom and go-for-broke commitment to improvisational abandon. The truth is that Martino stands up every time he plays. Hints of Martino's unique power is contained in each episode of his work, this latest chapter included. --- Josef Woodard, jazztimes.com

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1. The Breeze and I
2. Sunny
3. Both Sides Now
4. Impressions
5. Alone Together
6. Send in the Clowns
7. Three Base Hit
8. Blue Bossa                play
9. Do You Have a Name?
10. How Insensitive.         play

Pat Martino (guitar)
Bobby Rose (guitar)
Willis "Gator" Jackson (tenor saxophone)
Gil Goldstein (piano, electric piano)
Eddie Green , Ron Thomas (electric piano)
Charles Earland (organ)
Tyrone Brown (fretless bass)
Sherman Ferguson (drums, percussion)
Idris Muhammad, Joey Baron, Billy Hart, Billy Higgins (drums)
Buddy Caldwell (congas).

The 32 Jazz compilation Cream collects tracks from some of guitarist Pat Martino's best albums, including Consciousness and his post-brain aneurysm 1987 comeback Return. Although 32 Jazz also reissued most of the albums these cuts come from, having them in one place makes for a nice introduction to Martino's distinctive ambient "machine gun"-like improvisational style. ~ Matt Collar.

One of the most original of the jazz-based guitarists to emerge in the 1960s, Pat Martino made a remarkable comeback after brain surgery in 1980 to correct an aneurysm caused him to lose his memory and completely forget how to play. It took years, but he regained his ability, partly by listening to his older records. Martino began playing professionally when he was 15. He worked early on with groups led by Willis Jackson, Red Holloway, and a series of organists, including Don Patterson, Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Richard "Groove" Holmes, and Jimmy McGriff. After playing with John Handy (1966), he started leading his own bands and heading sessions for Prestige, Muse, and Warner Bros. that found him welcoming the influences of avant-garde jazz, rock, pop, and world music into his advanced hard bop style. After the operation, Martino did not resume playing until 1984, making his recording comeback with 1987's The Return. Although not as active as earlier, Pat Martino has regained his earlier form, recording again for Muse and Evidence; he later signed with Blue Note, issuing All Sides Now in 1996, followed two years later by Stone Blue and in 1998 by Fire Dance. In 2001 Martino released a live album recorded at Yoshi's in California. Two years later he teamed with saxophonist Joe Lovano for Think Tank. Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery appeared on Blue Note in 2006. ~ Scott Yanow

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1. Oleo, 
2. All Blues, 
3. Mac Tough, 
4. Welcome to a Prayer, 
5. El Hombre, 
6. Recollection, 
7. Blue in Green, 
8. Catch

Personnel: 
Pat Martino (guitar), 
Joey DeFrancesco (organ), 
Billy Hart (drums)

Pat Martino's career has been marked by serious health problems. However, with each passing year, he continues to fight the odds and make forward-looking statements in jazz. LIVE AT YOSHI'S is no exception to this. Throughout the years, Martino fans have come to expect blindingly fast, virtuosic bop solos from him. These he delivers on all eight tracks. In fact, we hear inspired, spontaneous performances by all three musicians on this disc.

This live 2000 concert date sees Martino in great form. His playing is heartfelt and, as usual, he dazzles the crowd with outstanding harmonic ingenuity. Joined by organ phenom Joey DeFrancesco and veteran drummer Billy Hart, Martino performs a variety of tunes including Miles Davis's "All Blues" and the lush Bill Evans/Miles Davis Ballad "Blue in Green." Uptempo burners such as Sonny Rollins' "Oleo" and Martino's own "Catch" display the true improvisational prowess of this jazz power trio. LIVE AT YOSHI'S was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.

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1. Four on Six; 
2. Groove Yard; 
3. Heartstrings; 
4. Twisted Blues; 
5. Road Song; 
6. West Coast Blues; 
7. S.K.J.; 
8. If I Should Lose You; 
9. Unit 7.

Personnel: 
Pat Martino: guitar; 
David Kikoski: piano; 
John Patitucci: bass; 
Scott Allan Robinson: drums; 
Daniel Sadownick: percussion.

Pat Martino and Wes Montgomery were two of the most famous guitarists to emerge out of the '60s jazz scene, an era that saw the guitar raised to the status of saxophones and trumpets. Martino and Montgomery's styles, however, were quite different, one rapid-fire post-bop, the other blues-based hard bop. This doesn't mean, however, that Martino wasn't -- like everyone else -- influenced by Montgomery. Martino's Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery, then, isn't so much an album that seeks to mimic the style of another guitarist, but a loving tribute that reflects without copying Montgomery's style. Yes, Martino does pull gems from the Montgomery catalog like "Four on Six" and "West Coast Blues," and he even references his use of octaves more than once, but this is more reflective than stylistic.

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1. The Phineas Trane (Mabern) - 6:40 
2. Think Tank (Martino) - 12:09 
3. Dozen Down (Martino) - 7:56 
4. Sun on My Hands (Ridl) - 9:19 
5. Africa (Coltrane) - 11:44 
6. Quatessence (Martino) - 9:59 
7. Before You Ask (Martino) - 6:53 
8. Earthlings (Ford) - 5:33

Personnel: 
Pat Martino (guitar); 
Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone); 
Gonzalo Rubalcaba (piano); 
Christian McBride (bass); 
Lewis Nash (drums).

‘Think Tank’, as the name suggests, finds Martino at his most cerebral, which has its pros and cons. The title track, for example, is a blues of sorts built on an equation based on the letters of John Coltrane's name, which may sound like an exercise for a composition class, but manages to hold together pretty well organically. Coltrane, a Philadelphia mentor of Martino's, is a recurring reference on the album, both indirectly in Martino's intensely spiritual and intellectual approach to the music. ‘Think Tank’ was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.

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