Pat Martino packs Blues Alley

Jazz guitarist Pat Martino and his quartet played four sold-out shows at Blues Alley on April 8 and 9. Martino treated the audience to his addictively energetic brand of hard bop, leaving any fan of good music wanting more.

The group mostly played jazz standards, including many tunes by Wes Montgomery. Every song started off at maximum intensity and didn't let up; even at the end of a long set, the music did not want to stop. The ballads showcased superb interplay between musicians and were comfortable and pensive.

Martino is an extremely intelligent man; his jazz guitar theory confounds many professional musicians with its diagrams of superimposed squares, triangles, grids and constellations. After undergoing brain surgery in 1980, Martino forgot how to play guitar and re-taught himself by listening to his own recordings. He also has an amazing memory; one member of the audience said that after a 10-minute conversation with the guitarist, Martino greeted him by name many months later.

Despite his abstract musical philosophy, Martino's playing doesn't seem at all strange or mechanical. His tone is deep and smooth, just like his old-time radio voice. He plays standard sixteenth-note hard bop lines, every once and a while throwing in a speedy sweep-picked lick. He and pianist Rick Germanson have a way of repeating rhythmic motifs, adding layers of energy and color.

Germanson is absolutely jaw-dropping in his own right, at times almost upstaging Martino. Germanson has amazing interplay between his two hands, going from dense ascending chords to a flurry of notes, as if the musical soup was boiling over. But no matter what was going on, drummer Scott Alan Robinson kept his cool, maintaining a polyrhythm between his playing and his gum. In fact, all the musicians seemed incredibly calm. Bassist Craig Thomas leaned back leisurely on a stool, smiling contentedly. Robinson's head lazily dipped to one side. Germanson stared thoughtfully into space. And Martino stood still, like the calm eye of a hurricane.

To close the set, the group played Sonny Rollins' standard Oleo, the highlight of the evening. Germanson built energy with dissonant block chords. A smile crept out the right side of Martino's mouth, and he started to swing his guitar back and forth. I sat so close that I was almost hit in the face a few times. During his solo, Robinson played a circular pattern on his toms, and afterwards, Martino grinned and pointed at him. At the end, my leg ached from tapping my foot along with the beat.