Pat Martino

Pat Martino was born Patrick Carmen Azzara on August 25, 1944, in South Philadelphia. His father, Carmen “Mickey” Azzara, worked in a tailor shop and sang part-time in clubs, having briefly studied guitar with Eddie Lang. At twelve, Martino received a Gibson Les Paul from his father. By fourteen he was studying with Philadelphia teacher Dennis Sandole, whose studio also drew John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner. He left high school in tenth grade to pursue music full-time and moved to Harlem at fifteen. Martino soon toured with bandleader Lloyd Price and saxophonist Willis Jackson, immersing himself in the soul-jazz organ-trio scene alongside Brother Jack McDuff and Don Patterson. This experience shaped his rhythmic drive and harmonic depth more than any guitarist’s influence did. His true idol was Wes Montgomery, whom he met as a teenager through his father.

Prestige signed Martino at twenty, and he announced himself with the 1967 debut El Hombre. East!, Strings!, and the psychedelic-tinged Baiyina followed rapidly in 1968. His tone was warm and burning, his bebop lines delivered with blistering speed and emotional clarity uncommon even among virtuosos. He continued into hard bop with Desperado in 1970 and The Visit! in 1972, an homage to Montgomery. Martino then pushed into fusion on Muse’s Consciousness in 1974 and Warner Bros.’ Starbright in 1976, without abandoning his blues-soaked core.

Unknown to audiences, Martino had lived with a congenital arteriovenous malformation that caused escalating seizures and headaches through the late 1970s. In 1980, facing a possible fatal rupture, he underwent emergency brain surgery that removed portions of his left temporal lobe. He awoke with total amnesia, unable to recognize his parents or recall how to play guitar. Over roughly seven years he rebuilt his musical vocabulary by obsessively relistening to his own old recordings. This rehabilitation, he later said, left him free of competitive anxiety and focused on the present moment. His 1987 Muse album The Return confirmed a full comeback.

From the 1990s onward, Martino recorded for Muse, Blue Note, and HighNote. He released Live at Yoshi’s on Blue Note in 2001 and Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery on Blue Note in 2006, both earning Grammy nominations. He received four nominations total and was named DownBeat Readers’ Poll Guitar Player of the Year in 2004. Martino taught at Berklee College of Music and the New School, mentoring younger guitarists while documenting his harmonic system in instructional materials. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease forced him to stop performing after a 2018 tour of Italy. He died on November 1, 2021, at age 77, in the same South Philadelphia rowhouse where he grew up. Martino remains known for his technical command and as an example of the brain’s capacity for reorganization.