JAZZ REVIEW : Exhilarating Catalina Show From Guitar Virtuoso Martino

It would be easy to simply define guitarist Pat Martino’s music in the context of his survival. His return to music after enduring serious loss of memory as the result of an aneurysm is such a exceptional story of courage and tenacity that it tends to frame his playing in the perspective of his remarkable recovery.

But Tuesday, in the opening performance of a six-night run at Catalina Bar & Grill, Martino’s playing refused to be limited by his history. He now is, regardless of circumstance, in the top rank of contemporary jazz guitarists.

The first few minutes of his set, however, were somewhat erratic. Martino is a workmanlike performer, not particularly gregarious with his audience, and not--by any stretch of the imagination--a musically showboating player. He started out, and continued for several numbers, with a series of brilliantly executed, technically virtuosic solos. While his remarkably fluid finger movements drew gasps of appreciation and little bursts of applause from an overflow crowd liberally sprinkled with young guitarists, the music itself initially had an emotionally bloodless quality.

Nor was Martino especially aided by his rhythm section’s failure, initially, at least, to find a solidly propulsive groove. It wasn’t until he dug into a piece called “Turnpike” that Martino and his rhythm section finally clicked into the exhilarating forward momentum that musicians describe as “in the pocket.”

Once turned up, the heat stayed up, with Martino’s brief, harmonically dense solo fragment of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” followed by a hard-swinging medium tempo original in which he juxtaposed his rapid-fire lines against blues-drenched riffing.

It was an impressive performance by a gifted artist. Martino’s return to the highest level of improvisation is a welcome addition to the jazz of the ‘90s.