Pat Martino describing how jazz goes by too fast to put much thought into one's improvisations as told to Mark Koch in the movie "Open Road" by Phil Fallo.
There's the eyes...at.. 0:04 For those of us that spent a goodly amount of time w/Pat back in the mid 80's.. Drinkin coffee.. Hanging out at the Melrose diner.. Or in his practice room.. Eatin Japanese food at his fave restaurant in downtown Philly.. Magical times.. Magical eyes and the deepest soul.. Besides the guitar master.. The highest spiritual master I have ever met.. Oh what lessons he had to give.. The universe poured thru him.. This is the best vid I have seen of those eyes.. The eyes of eternity..infinity. Bless you Pat.. I will never forget you.
I went to Pennsylvania to see him & he took me with his wife, Aya, to a sushi place in downtown Philadelphia. I was mixing the wasabi with soy in a dish like all the while boys do. He asked Aya, “what is he doing?” He put the wasabi on the fish & poured a little soy on it. Later he took me to Chris’ Jazz Cafe to see Johnny Valentino & Michael Pedicin. I met Johnny a while before this when I went to dinner with Pat at the national guitar summer workshop in LA.
It's almost trolling when jazz musicians are this mystical about it. It takes a colossal amount of thinking, planning, and intellectual energy to play jazz competently. If you know what tunes you will play and you've practiced those tunes enough that you don't have to think about it that's one thing, but if the band starts playing a tune you don't know in a key they didn't mention, you'll be thinking real hard to find all the things you're supposed to do. You could literally write a book about how to play well while improvising over a one single jazz standard. That said, I had an email exchange with Pat around 2010 and he seemed very helpful and modest. It's just jazz culture that makes us think and talk this way about it.
Not jazz culture perse, he moreso tried to academicize his language to a quasi mathematical level. when you listen to him speak it sounds like hes jumbling up different jargon terms into something sounds like a framework, i guess that's jazz, improvisation. Don't get me wrong, he's a great player, and minor substitution makes sense, but he was definitely posturing a bit.
@terrapin323 That's putting it lightly. I'm a great fan of his, but you can spend a lifetime trying to decipher his concepts and get nothing out of it. Pat didn't learn his own craft this way. He learned by doing. Then applied his own mysticism to what he was doing. I'd never recommend someone try to learn that way. As a student you want to train with gene lebell, not david carradine.
@@nunyabidnez7857 Pat figured out what he was doing after the fact to communicate it to us. When he said it goes by to fast he’s talking about changing scales on every chord. He took 2/5s as a single topic, he used minor, Barry Harris focused on the dominant.
@DoctorGuitar Mostly agree. But more importantly, you can watch an old Barry Harris clip and get something practical out of it. It's harder to do that with Pat. Ex., people have been studying him for decades, and still you hear oversimplified and overemphasized topics like conversion to minor. Yet no one sounds like Pat. There's obviously more to it, but no one wants to bother digging through the all the window dressing. Tristano did this too, and now no one studies him. Barry Harris will never die, because he is proven and practical.
This is funny because I met Mark one year at NAMM and said "your'e the guy from the Pat Martino video" and Bill Purse who was standing next to him busted his chops and said "Jazz doesn't work that way" Lol... great clip. The bonus footage of the lesson is terrific if you purchase the digital download.
"When I respond to questions in an interview, I give no thought, whatsoever, to my answers." I have lived my life appropriately, and thus my spontaneous answers will necessarily reflect the truth of my existence.
There’s still some great videos of him in Europe. Study those & drink a Heineken (his favorite beer) while you’re doing it. He would often end our correspondence with, “cheers”.
Well done Pat. If you get hold of his DVDs/downloads on his approach to playing jazz, these remarks become much less cryptic. The key lines here are 'it's too fast' and 'it's prepared for'. That doesn't mean that it's intuitive or not cerebral, just that all that goes on before you get on the bandstand.
the description bothers me. Pat didn't say he doesn't put much thought into improv. He said he doesn't think too far ahead to consider where to schedule resolution points.
I’ve heard from people that played it that it is heavy. Benson saw him picking up a Les Paul & thought he would have trouble playing it. About a half a minute later he knew better & wondered what the hell he was doing in New York with competition like that.
Rivera guitar. It was made from exotic woods & people tell me it’s very heavy. The Benedetto model with his name on it is much lighter. I own one & I really like it. It’s much cleaner sounding.
I held this guitar and it was a beast! It was heavy. How Pat could stand with this guitar hanging on him for an entire concert is hard to understand being that Pat was a petite guy. Although... Pat did say to me that when the music starts, the weight of the guitar is irrelevant. Amazing.
@@jayumble8390he was amazing. At the point I was traveling with I would carry the much lighter Benedetto & his Acoustic Image amplifier. I really loved that he let me do that.
Jazz guy- “It’s a fight in the void… from the 1st one to the last run to fan fair. Numbers, scales.. notes; none of it matters…. BUT.. it all matters you see?” Interviewer-Ohhhh, so where do you get your ideas from?
sorry to be trolling musician here, and i LOVE pat, but i think he meant it in a different way when he said "i DONT THINK when i play.....jazz is a way of THINKING". jazz is more of a way of life/mindset...?
I think that's right, and I regret I said some such before I got down as far as your comment. Really, the issue is about answering an impossible question from the interviewer. Pat is (was ...) one of the most thoughtful, articulate and cerebral players out there and tried incredibly hard in his teaching to convey the complexity of spontaneous composition in words. My teacher was a huge fan and used the expression 'it's prepared for' all the time.
Pat was such a badass. Imo he wasnt the same ever after the brain surgery but he was still badder than 99.9% of cats in his fire, style and the cool, articulate yet mystical way he played and spoke. Having said that i met him at a small hotel jazz club in SF during the later part of his career after the initial comeback and his playin* was pretty much all the way back and i had to a chance to buy him a drink and tell him how much his music meant to me…he was super down to earth and spoke to like a normal dude…not in the way hes shining on this dopey interviewer. El Hombre, Live! (The 70’s record not the recent one) and Footprints are desert island Pat imo. And Conciseness. Also killlllin.
That “dopey interviewer” is actually very bright & a good friend of mine & of Pat’s. He was in charge of the Duquesne University Guitar Program & put on a summer jazz program every year with the biggest names in jazz guitar.
@@DoctorGuitarha! thank you for straightening me out. Sorry for being rude. He just came across unfortunately in this old clip as somebody that didn’t really understand jazz or guitar or how musicians think and the way Pat responded to him was really condescending. At least that’s how it came off… when I met Pat probably 10 years after that interview maybe a little more he was really humble and sweet and not standoffish like that at all so the fact that he was acting that way with a good friend of his?? gave me the wrong impression. I apologize for my ignorance and I’m sure your buddies a great guy and a great teacher. Cheers.
You are a lucky man. I also note your honest and gentle reply to doctor guitar. Regardless, I do believe that the interviewer's question was more or less unanswerable. It is clear that Pat is trying to describe being in the moment. You could get much the same response from a high level expert in any field. Horse riding, surgery, surfing. All these things are highly prepared for, but you don't do that much microthinking when they are actually going on. There just isn't the time. Pat is trying hard to avoid giving a misleading answer. In my field (psychology), if you were to ask someone how they remembered something, any answer they gave would be essentially a made up story. This is because the process of memory is opaque to us. The same is true of high level experts to a large degree. Mostly, what they do has been so extensively prepared for that they no longer think about it. More mundanely, ask me how I change lanes driving a car. I used to think I knew, but it turns out I don't (before you worry that I am out there on the road at the same time as you, it's true for everyone else as well). Pat says: 'Jazz doesn't work like that', but he might as well have said: 'The brain doesn't work like that'. Moreover, I have heard responses to similar questions which are almost exactly the same as Pat's
You can’t really use words to grasp the pursuit of a communion with the unlimited. The words themselves are the issue, not the speaker. It can’t be put into words, because it’s not conceptual - its just a spark, a flame, a wind, the dark, the sun, the ocean, etc. Satori. In that process music comes out but the music isn’t the point - the experience and freedom is the point… you prepare and then try to let the conditioning go… there is no method, no system, no path to follow… just attempting a personal complete truth… and prob failing a lot as a human condition - but sometimes touching the sun (this sounds like hipster bs but i actually mean it)
There's the eyes...at..
0:04
For those of us that spent a goodly amount of time w/Pat back in the mid 80's..
Drinkin coffee..
Hanging out at the Melrose diner..
Or in his practice room..
Eatin Japanese food at his fave restaurant in downtown Philly..
Magical times..
Magical eyes and the deepest soul..
Besides the guitar master..
The highest spiritual master I have ever met..
Oh what lessons he had to give..
The universe poured thru him..
This is the best vid I have seen of those eyes..
The eyes of eternity..infinity.
Bless you Pat..
I will never forget you.
I went to Pennsylvania to see him & he took me with his wife, Aya, to a sushi place in downtown Philadelphia. I was mixing the wasabi with soy in a dish like all the while boys do. He asked Aya, “what is he doing?” He put the wasabi on the fish & poured a little soy on it. Later he took me to Chris’ Jazz Cafe to see Johnny Valentino & Michael Pedicin. I met Johnny a while before this when I went to dinner with Pat at the national guitar summer workshop in LA.
@@DoctorGuitarwe mix it on a small plate in Japan, I’m wondering what HE was doing lol
_Once the performance begins, anything can happen._
It's almost trolling when jazz musicians are this mystical about it. It takes a colossal amount of thinking, planning, and intellectual energy to play jazz competently. If you know what tunes you will play and you've practiced those tunes enough that you don't have to think about it that's one thing, but if the band starts playing a tune you don't know in a key they didn't mention, you'll be thinking real hard to find all the things you're supposed to do. You could literally write a book about how to play well while improvising over a one single jazz standard. That said, I had an email exchange with Pat around 2010 and he seemed very helpful and modest. It's just jazz culture that makes us think and talk this way about it.
Not jazz culture perse, he moreso tried to academicize his language to a quasi mathematical level. when you listen to him speak it sounds like hes jumbling up different jargon terms into something sounds like a framework, i guess that's jazz, improvisation. Don't get me wrong, he's a great player, and minor substitution makes sense, but he was definitely posturing a bit.
@terrapin323 That's putting it lightly. I'm a great fan of his, but you can spend a lifetime trying to decipher his concepts and get nothing out of it. Pat didn't learn his own craft this way. He learned by doing. Then applied his own mysticism to what he was doing. I'd never recommend someone try to learn that way. As a student you want to train with gene lebell, not david carradine.
Nice tip. I'll email my favourite artists then
@@nunyabidnez7857 Pat figured out what he was doing after the fact to communicate it to us. When he said it goes by to fast he’s talking about changing scales on every chord. He took 2/5s as a single topic, he used minor, Barry Harris focused on the dominant.
@DoctorGuitar Mostly agree. But more importantly, you can watch an old Barry Harris clip and get something practical out of it. It's harder to do that with Pat. Ex., people have been studying him for decades, and still you hear oversimplified and overemphasized topics like conversion to minor. Yet no one sounds like Pat. There's obviously more to it, but no one wants to bother digging through the all the window dressing. Tristano did this too, and now no one studies him. Barry Harris will never die, because he is proven and practical.
This is funny because I met Mark one year at NAMM and said "your'e the guy from the Pat Martino video" and Bill Purse who was standing next to him busted his chops and said "Jazz doesn't work that way" Lol... great clip. The bonus footage of the lesson is terrific if you purchase the digital download.
Love it!
Discovered Pat late on, having seen many guitarists, I regret not having the chance to hear this musical and spiritual inspiration at work.
still love his music!!
"When I respond to questions in an interview, I give no thought, whatsoever, to my answers." I have lived my life appropriately, and thus my spontaneous answers will necessarily reflect the truth of my existence.
I missed out. What a legend.
There’s still some great videos of him in Europe. Study those & drink a Heineken (his favorite beer) while you’re doing it. He would often end our correspondence with, “cheers”.
Jazz Odyssey!
Well done Pat. If you get hold of his DVDs/downloads on his approach to playing jazz, these remarks become much less cryptic. The key lines here are 'it's too fast' and 'it's prepared for'. That doesn't mean that it's intuitive or not cerebral, just that all that goes on before you get on the bandstand.
This could be a sketch by the Mighty Boosh
You fear jazz.
I dont even care for Jazz but this guy is an animal.
I don’t have anyone I want to go see in this genre, maybe Dave Stryker or Barry Greene.
Mark Koch! I took lessons from him at Duquesne
I've never seen bodybuilder veins on a guitar arm like this!
the description bothers me. Pat didn't say he doesn't put much thought into improv. He said he doesn't think too far ahead to consider where to schedule resolution points.
Pat was such a little guy, and that guitar looks heavy as hell!
I’ve heard from people that played it that it is heavy. Benson saw him picking up a Les Paul & thought he would have trouble playing it. About a half a minute later he knew better & wondered what the hell he was doing in New York with competition like that.
Pat was a little guy?
@@homebakedgoods I don't know if I'd say "little." He was almost 6 feet tall, but he was so thin it looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over.
Adam driver could play this guy in a movie in a few years. holy s***
Pat told me a movie was in the works in Italy with a famous actor. I can’t recall his name.
I think he'd be too big. He's got the voice, though.
is there a full vrsion somwhere?
This is from a documentary called “Open Road”.
IF this is the Pat return sessions at Fat Tuesday, I was there, Joey Baron, Harvie S. (at that time known as Harvie Schwartz)... killin ridiculous
what a beautiful guitar - it looks like something that Glen Campbell might have played
Rivera guitar. It was made from exotic woods & people tell me it’s very heavy. The Benedetto model with his name on it is much lighter. I own one & I really like it. It’s much cleaner sounding.
Looks like a prize from a gum ball machine
@@user-mk2ye7rz9oLOL
I held this guitar and it was a beast! It was heavy. How Pat could stand with this guitar hanging on him for an entire concert is hard to understand being that Pat was a petite guy. Although... Pat did say to me that when the music starts, the weight of the guitar is irrelevant. Amazing.
@@jayumble8390he was amazing. At the point I was traveling with I would carry the much lighter Benedetto & his Acoustic Image amplifier. I really loved that he let me do that.
Jazz guy- “It’s a fight in the void… from the 1st one to the last run to fan fair. Numbers, scales.. notes; none of it matters…. BUT.. it all matters you see?”
Interviewer-Ohhhh, so where do you get your ideas from?
Pat rocking leather pants. Wow.
Machine-gun delivery
sorry to be trolling musician here, and i LOVE pat, but i think he meant it in a different way when he said "i DONT THINK when i play.....jazz is a way of THINKING". jazz is more of a way of life/mindset...?
I think that's right, and I regret I said some such before I got down as far as your comment. Really, the issue is about answering an impossible question from the interviewer. Pat is (was ...) one of the most thoughtful, articulate and cerebral players out there and tried incredibly hard in his teaching to convey the complexity of spontaneous composition in words. My teacher was a huge fan and used the expression 'it's prepared for' all the time.
I would love Matthew McConaughey play him on the big screen
Pat was such a badass. Imo he wasnt the same ever after the brain surgery but he was still badder than 99.9% of cats in his fire, style and the cool, articulate yet mystical way he played and spoke. Having said that i met him at a small hotel jazz club in SF during the later part of his career after the initial comeback and his playin* was pretty much all the way back and i had to a chance to buy him a drink and tell him how much his music meant to me…he was super down to earth and spoke to like a normal dude…not in the way hes shining on this dopey interviewer. El Hombre, Live! (The 70’s record not the recent one) and Footprints are desert island Pat imo. And Conciseness. Also killlllin.
That “dopey interviewer” is actually very bright & a good friend of mine & of Pat’s. He was in charge of the Duquesne University Guitar Program & put on a summer jazz program every year with the biggest names in jazz guitar.
@@DoctorGuitarha! thank you for straightening me out. Sorry for being rude. He just came across unfortunately in this old clip as somebody that didn’t really understand jazz or guitar or how musicians think and the way Pat responded to him was really condescending. At least that’s how it came off… when I met Pat probably 10 years after that interview maybe a little more he was really humble and sweet and not standoffish like that at all so the fact that he was acting that way with a good friend of his?? gave me the wrong impression. I apologize for my ignorance and I’m sure your buddies a great guy and a great teacher. Cheers.
Jeremy. U should then know that he was better after his comeback. They all say so Check that ear 😉
@@rickberry4477not to me but youre entitled to your opinion. i bought everyhing he did after the surgery so ive listened to it all. peace.
You are a lucky man. I also note your honest and gentle reply to doctor guitar. Regardless, I do believe that the interviewer's question was more or less unanswerable. It is clear that Pat is trying to describe being in the moment. You could get much the same response from a high level expert in any field. Horse riding, surgery, surfing. All these things are highly prepared for, but you don't do that much microthinking when they are actually going on. There just isn't the time. Pat is trying hard to avoid giving a misleading answer. In my field (psychology), if you were to ask someone how they remembered something, any answer they gave would be essentially a made up story. This is because the process of memory is opaque to us. The same is true of high level experts to a large degree. Mostly, what they do has been so extensively prepared for that they no longer think about it. More mundanely, ask me how I change lanes driving a car. I used to think I knew, but it turns out I don't (before you worry that I am out there on the road at the same time as you, it's true for everyone else as well). Pat says: 'Jazz doesn't work like that', but he might as well have said: 'The brain doesn't work like that'. Moreover, I have heard responses to similar questions which are almost exactly the same as Pat's
You can’t really use words to grasp the pursuit of a communion with the unlimited. The words themselves are the issue, not the speaker. It can’t be put into words, because it’s not conceptual - its just a spark, a flame, a wind, the dark, the sun, the ocean, etc. Satori. In that process music comes out but the music isn’t the point - the experience and freedom is the point… you prepare and then try to let the conditioning go… there is no method, no system, no path to follow… just attempting a personal complete truth… and prob failing a lot as a human condition - but sometimes touching the sun (this sounds like hipster bs but i actually mean it)
Jazz doesn't work! Full stop.
To me, he's just talking about a flow state.