Ronny Jordan

Born on November 29, 1962, in London, England.

Career . . .

Guitarist; credited as a pioneer of acid jazz; released the albums: The Quiet Revolution, 1993; Bad Brothers, 1995; Light to Dark, 1996; A Brighter Day, 1999.

Life's Work . . .

Down Beat magazine called Ronny Jordan "one of acid jazz's early instrumental heroes." Jordan was one of the first guitarists in the early 1990s to fuse open jazz improvisations with funk and hip hop rhythms. The experiment offended jazz purists, but the resulting "acid jazz," spread quickly from London to New York, San Francisco, and across the United States. Although the record industry was slow to catch on to the movement, and the purists rejected the new formula, Jordan's 1992 debut album The Antidote, became one of the most popular records to emerge from London's acid jazz scene. "I'm not a hard-nosed jazz purist," Jordan told Guitar Player, which may have been the understatement of his career.

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Self-Taught Guitarist . . .

Jordan was born in 1962 in London, England. His parents were of Jamaican descent. A self-taught guitarist, Jordan first picked up the instrument at the age of four, and was playing live shows at the age of 15. He was exposed to gospel groups like the Soul Stirrers and Andréa Crouch. Jordan's first public performances were with gospel acts in and around London. His father, a minister, disapproved of his son leading a musician's life. To appease him, Jordan went to college and earned a business degree. Before devoting himself to his music full-time, Jordan worked "straight" jobs for many years.

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   Charlie Christian         Wes Montgomery          Ronny Jordan

The outbreak of British funk during the 1980s inspired Jordan to start exploring different types of music beyond his gospel roots. At some point, he developed a fascination with jazz. His influences included Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, and Grant Green. Although Jordan loved jazz, he was also fond of 1970s funk groups like Sly & The Family Stone, Parliament/Funkadelic, and Tower of Power. "I was split down the middle," he told Guitar Player.

Jordan started experimenting after college and combined his two loves, jazz and funk. When hip hop began to take off, he started incorporating that into the mix as well. Jordan's experiments resulted in the song "After Hours," on which he played all of the instruments. This single was one of the first recordings of the music genre that would come to be known as "acid jazz."

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Acid Jazz Gets a Name . . .

The term "acid jazz" applies to a style of music created by disc jockeys in London. The music recreated sounds from the 1970s era, complete with the "wah-wah" guitar and Hammond organ that exemplified the work of artists such as Roy Ayers and Donald Byrd. However, Jordan believes that it is impossible to recapture that old sound. "So rather than calling my music acid jazz," he told Guitar Player, "I refer to it as 'music for the head and feet.'" Jazz purists hated the new sound. They believed that jazz should not be fused with funk, hip-hop, rap, and R&B. In an interview with Guitar Player, Jordan counted contemporary jazz musician Wynton Marsalis among his critics.

Initially, record companies showed no interest in producing acid jazz recordings. "After Hours" was rejected by several British record companies. After Jordan recorded a compelling reworking of legendary jazz artist Miles Davis's classic "So What," the attitudes of record company executives began to change. Jordan took Davis's cool sense of jazz improvisation and updated it with hip-hop rhythms. His version of "So What" became a hit on London's underground music scene. Jordan soon landed a record deal with Island Records, and released his debut album, The Antidote, in 1992. The Antidote was influential, and the acid jazz movement began to spread. Jordan also found success when he teamed with hip-hop artist Guru on 1993's Jazzmatazz, Volume 1. Jordan's guitar work was featured prominently on the record, and it became a best seller. Jazzmatazz brought acid jazz into the mainstream, and made it a viable genre. In 1995, 2`1appeared on Jazzmatazz, Volume 2.

By the time that Jordan released his follow-up to The Antidote, the popularity of acid jazz was beginning to wane. Down Beat magazine credited his 1994 release, The Quiet Revolution, for it's guest appearances by hip-hop artists Guru, Dana Bryant, and vocalist Fay Simpson. It also noted that, without the hip-hop rhythms, Jordan's music "goes limp." In 1995, Jordan released Bad Brothers, which contained remixes of his earlier work. Although critical response to the album was lukewarm, Jordan continued to perform before enthusiastic crowds throughout North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, and Southeast Asia.

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Signed with Blue Note . . .

  

In 1999, Jordan signed a new contract with the legendary jazz label Blue Note. His Blue Note debut, A Brighter Day, was released in March of 2000. The album explores many styles of music, including trip-hop, bossa-nova, and the sounds of Brazil and India, and pays homage to British acid jazz. "I really feel this record is giving me the first opportunity to show all that I can do," Jordan remarked in his Blue Note biography. On one track, Jordan teamed with one of his heroes, Roy Ayers, on a new version of Ayers's classic "Mystic Voyage." A Brighter Day was recorded in New York City, and featured many local musicians. "This album has a more organic feel to it than anything I've done before," Jordan noted in his Blue Note biography. "The energy of the New York musicians was very conducive to what I wanted to do in taking my music to the next level."

Although Jordan understands the criticism he gets from jazz purists for mixing a new formula, he has a different historical outlook. "Remember, jazz started out as street music," he told Guitar Player. "Benny Goodman, Charlie Christian, and Django Reinhardt were the '30s equivalent of rave and house. Their urban feel was very close to what hip hop is today. They're both based in reality."

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Guitarist . . .

While many of guitarist Ronny Jordan's influences played straight jazz, he has made his reputation by fusing jazz with other musical genres. "I'm not a hardnosed jazz purist," he told Joe Gore in Guitar Player. His involvement in the British funk scene during the 1980s opened his eyes to the possibility of mixing jazz, rap, and pop in daring ways. While some jazz purists resisted Jordan's progressive thinking, radio audiences embraced early efforts like "After Hours" and a new version of Miles Davis's "So What." Besides fusing different styles of music, he also worked to create music that would appeal to both traditional jazz fans and people who liked to dance. "I like jazz the common man can relate to," Jordan told Fred Shuster in the Los Angeles Daily News. "It has to be music from the heart and soul, of the street. It's time for a new breed."

Jordan was born Ronald Simpson in North England to Jamaican parents in 1962, and would later change his name to Jordan in tribute to basketball player Michael Jordan. He began playing the ukulele at four, performing at his father's Pentecostal Church, and began playing guitar with other musicians at age 15. "What I learned in church was feeling and melody," Jordan told USA Today. "I still try to use my guitar as a voice." He was won over by jazz, however, after hearing the sounds of guitarist Wes Montgomery, and would also discover Grant Green, George Benson, and Kenny Burrell. He told Shuster, "When I first heard Benson's 'Breezin" on the radio, I flipped. It turned me onto radio-friendly jazz." But his father disapproved of a musician's life and encouraged Jordan to earn a business degree in college. Jordan acquiesced, and following college worked a series of "straight jobs" before returning to his first love, jazz guitar.

Jordan's musical journey would take time, though. He loved jazz, but he had also grown up listening to Earth, Wind, and Fire, P-Funk, and Steely Dan. "I loved jazz," he told Gore, "but I also liked funky stuff like Sly and the Family Stone, P-Funk, Tower of Power, Prince.

I was split down the middle." In 1980 he listened to his first hip-hop record. By the mid-1980s he had became a professional musician. "Bands like Parliament were coming over [to Britain]," Jordan told Nicky Baxter on the Metro Active website, "and they had a huge influence on musicians. I know I was [influenced]." These musical experiences led him to combine jazz and funk, and for the next ten years he experimented with variations on these styles. He told Baxter, "I've always played what I like, even when I was playing in clubs and no one was really paying attention."

In 1991 Jordan signed with Universal Island. He released his first album, The Antidote, on 4th and Broadway (part of Universal Island) in 1992, and followed with The Quiet Revolution in 1993 and Light to Dark in 1996. Jordan first came to the public's attention with a recording of Miles Davis's "So What," included on The Antidote. Baxter wrote that "the single proved to be a definitive statement in the still-embryonic acid-jazz genre." The instrumental also reached the British top 40, as well as number ten on contemporary jazz charts in the United States. Although each of his first three albums provided Jordan with more exposure, he would require more time to completely integrate his ideas.

The next stage of his career, however, would have to wait. In the mid-1990s, following the release of Light and Dark, Jordan's relationship with Island Records became strained. He disagreed with the label over marketing strategies, and as a result did not release a new record for four years. Even after signing a new contract, he was forced to re-record a number of works in progress because of past contractual agreements.

The wait was more than worth it for Jordan's fans. In 1999 he released his fourth album, A Brighter Day, in which he added a touch of daring to his distinct jazz fusion. "After being recognized by the entire jazz-funk scene as number one," noted the Freestyle website, "the fact that this album is being released on the legendary Blue Note label shows that the entire jazz scene has recognized the man's talent." But recording for jazz's most prestigious label in no way signaled a conservative approach. Instead, Jordan teamed up with hip-hop activist Mos Def, producer DJ Spinna, and singer Jill Jones to create a fresh, innovative sound based in Latin and Indian music and combined with hip-hop. "I like to work with people who you normally wouldn't find working in a [jazz] environment," he told the VH1 website, "because what you find is that you can get surprises." A Brighter Day also received a Grammy nomination.

Jordan followed with Off the Record in 2001, once again blending hip-hop, blues, and soul. "Off the Record is not a smooth jazz album, nor is it a straight ahead album," Jordan told the website Jazz Online. "It's a sugar free, urban sounding record." In 2003 Jordan released At Last on N2K, and he continued to push boundaries. Thom Jurek in All Music Guide noted, "This is easily Jordan's most consistent date as well as his most mature compositionally, musically, and soulfully. At Last is the summer record of 2003."

Jordan's work has been responsible for taking jazz in new directions, and he has also reasserted the guitar's influence in the field of jazz. Jason Ankeny wrote in All Music Guide, "One of the acid jazz movement's most prominent guitarists, Jordan is widely credited with returning the instrument to its rightful place as a major force in modern-day jazz."
Jordan has maintained an active performance schedule, and has toured Africa, Asia, and Austria, along with a steady stream of gigs in the United States. For ten years he has fought an uphill battle against his music being labeled "smooth jazz" and "acid jazz." "I'm a maverick," Jordan told Jim Bessman in Billboard. "There's acid-jazz, straight-ahead acid-jazz, new swing jazz. ... I can name a dozen labels. They're just the latest members of the large family known as jazz, and in five years there will be something else. I look at my music as 'eternal music,' and don't want to be bogged down by labels."

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Ronny Jordan’s music is what I would call sophisticated jazz with a heart of “British-Funk / Smooth Jazz Fusion”.  I truly wish he would have produced more albums than he has, but those that he has produced are musical works of art.  His musical influences such as Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Charlie Christian and Grant Green caused his music theory to be heavily grounded in “swing-jazz” or “straight jazz”, but his live performances in the clubs in England has him grounded in what you would call “British Funk”.  Mixing the straight ahead jazz with the rhythms and beats from the British Funk venue created what they call “acid jazz” or “modern day jazz-fusion”.

I hope you enjoyed this article about Ronny Jordan.  Check out some of his music and decide for yourself.

Until next time ~ ~ ~

Musician By Night . . .

Charlie Christian AKA Charles Henry Christian . . . Happy New Year 2012 !

Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian (July 29, 1916 – March 2, 1942), was an important early performer, American swing and jazz guitarist, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra from August 1939 to June 1941. His single-string technique combined with amplification helped bring the guitar out of the rhythm section and into the forefront as a solo instrument. John Hammond and George T. Simon called Christian the best improvisational talent of the swing era. In the liner notes to the 1972 Columbia album Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian, Gene Lees writes that "many critics and musicians consider that Christian was one of the founding fathers of bebop, or if not that, at least a precursor to it".

Christian's influence reached beyond jazz and swing — in 1990 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Christian was raised in Oklahoma City and was one of many musicians who jammed along the city's "Deep Deuce" section on N.E. Second Street. In 2006 Oklahoma City renamed a street in its Bricktown entertainment district Charlie Christian Avenue.

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Christian was born in Bonham, Texas, but his family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma when he was a small child. His parents were musicians and he had two brothers, Edward, born in 1906, and Clarence, born in 1911. All three sons were taught music by their father, Clarence Henry Christian. Clarence Henry was struck blind by fever, and in order to support the family he and the boys would work as buskers, on what the Christians called "busts." He would have them lead him into the better neighborhoods where they would perform for cash or goods. When Charles was old enough to go along, he first entertained by dancing. Later he learned guitar, inheriting his father's instruments upon his death when Charles was 12.

He attended Douglass School in Oklahoma City, and was further encouraged in music by instructor Zelia Breaux. Charles wanted to play tenor saxophone in the school band, but she insisted he try trumpet instead. Because he believed playing the trumpet would disfigure his lip, he quit to pursue his interest in baseball, at which he excelled.

In a 1978 interview with Charlie Christian biographer Craig McKinney, Clarence Christian said that in the 1920s and '30s Edward Christian led a band in Oklahoma City as a pianist and had a shaky relationship with trumpeter James Simpson. Around 1931, he took guitarist "Bigfoot" Ralph Hamilton and began secretly schooling the younger Charles on jazz. They taught him to solo on three songs, "Rose Room", "Tea for Two", and "Sweet Georgia Brown". When the time was right they took him out to one of the many after-hours jam sessions along "Deep Deuce", Northeast Second Street in Oklahoma City.

"Let Charles play one," they told Edward. "Ah, nobody wants to hear them old blues," Edward replied. After some encouragement, he allowed Charles to play. "What do you want to play?" he asked. All three songs were big in the early 1930s and Edward was surprised that Charles knew them. After two encores, Charles had played all three and "Deep Deuce" was in an uproar. He coolly dismissed himself from the jam session, and his mother had heard about it before he got home.

Charles fathered a daughter, Billie Jean Christian, born December 23, 1932, with Margretta Lorraine Downey of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They never married. Billie Jean (Christian) Johnson died 19 July 2004.

Charles soon was performing locally and on the road throughout the Midwest, as far away as North Dakota and Minnesota. By 1936 he was playing electric guitar and had become a regional attraction. He jammed with many of the big name performers traveling through Oklahoma City including Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. It was Mary Lou Williams, pianist for "Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy", who told record producer John Hammond about Charlie Christian.

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Christian's solos are frequently referred to as "horn-like", and in that sense he was more influenced by horn players such as Lester Young and Herschel Evans than by early acoustic guitarists like Eddie Lang and jazz/bluesman Lonnie Johnson, although they both had contributed to the expansion of the guitar's role from "rhythm section" instrument to a solo instrument. Christian admitted he wanted his guitar to sound like a tenor saxophone. Belgian gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt had little influence on Christian, but he was obviously familiar with some of his recordings. Guitarist Mary Osborne recalled hearing him play Django's solo on "St. Louis Blues" note for note, but then following it with his own ideas. By 1939 there had already been electric guitar soloists—Leonard Ware, George Barnes, trombonist/composer ("Topsy") Eddie Durham had recorded with Count Basie's Kansas City Six, Floyd Smith recorded "Floyd's Guitar Blues" with Andy Kirk in March 1939, using an amplified lap steel guitar, and Texas Swing pioneer Eldon Shamblin was using amplified electric guitar with Bob Wills. However, Charles Christian was the first great soloist on the amplified guitar.

Guitarists who followed Christian and who were influenced by him include Oscar Moore (Nat King Cole trio), Les Paul, Tiny Grimes, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, and Jim Hall. Tiny Grimes, who made several records with Art Tatum, can often be heard quoting Christian note-for-note.

Christian paved the way for the modern electric guitar sound that was followed by other pioneers, including T-Bone Walker, Eddie Cochran, Cliff Gallup, Scotty Moore, Franny Beecher, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Carlos Santana and Jimi Hendrix. For this reason Christian was inducted in 1990 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "Early Influence".

Christian's exposure was so great in the brief period he played with Goodman that he influenced not only guitarists, but other musicians as well. The influence he had on "Dizzy" Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Don Byas can be heard on their early "bop" recordings "Blue'n Boogie" and "Salt Peanuts". Other musicians, such as trumpeter Miles Davis, cite Christian as an early influence. Indeed, Christian's "new" sound influenced jazz as a whole. He reigned supreme in the jazz guitar polls up to two years after his death.

 

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Bebop and Minton's Playhouse

Charlie Christian was an important contributor to the music that became known as "bop" or "Bebop". Private recordings made in September 1939 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Goodman aficionado Jerry Newhouse capture the newly hired Christian while on the road with Goodman and feature Goodman tenor sax man Jerry Jerome and then local bass man Oscar Pettiford. Taking multiple solos, Christian shows much the same improvisational skills later captured on the Minton's and Monroe's recordings in 1941, suggesting that he had already matured as a musician. The Minneapolis recordings include "Stardust", "Tea for Two" and "I've Got Rhythm", the latter a favorite piece of bop composers and jammers.

More of the unrestrained Christian is apparent in recordings of the partial Goodman Sextet made in March 1941. With Goodman and bassist Artie Bernstein absent, Christian and the rest of the Sextet recorded for nearly 20 minutes as the engineers tested equipment. Two recordings were released from that session years later: "Blues in B" and "Waiting for Benny", which showed hints of bop jam sessions. The free flow of these sessions contrasts with the more formal swing music recorded after Goodman had arrived at the studio. Other Goodman Sextet records that foretell bop are "Seven Come Eleven" (1939) and "Air Mail Special" (1940 and 1941).

An even more striking example is a series of recordings made at Minton's Playhouse, an after-hours club located in the Hotel Cecil at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem by Columbia student Jerry Newman on a portable disk recorder in 1941. Newman captured Christian, accompanied by Joe Guy on trumpet, Kenny Kersey on piano and Kenny Clarke on drums, stretching out far beyond what the confines of the 78 RPM record would allow. His work on "Swing to Bop", a later Esoteric Records company re-title of Eddie Durham's "Topsy," is an example of what Christian was capable of creating "off the cuff."

His use of tension and release, a technique employed by Lester Young, Count Basie and later bop musicians, is also present on "Stompin' at the Savoy", included among the Newman recordings. The collection also includes recordings made at Clark Monroe's Uptown House, another late-night jazz haunt in the Harlem of 1941 that include Oran "Hot Lips" Page. Other recordings include tenor sax man Don Byas. The Minton's recordings were long rumored to feature "Dizzy" Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, but that has since been proven untrue, although both were regulars at the jam sessions, with Monk a regular in the Minton's house band.

Kenny Clarke claimed that "Epistrophy" and "Rhythm-a-ning" were Charlie Christian compositions that Christian played with Clarke and Thelonious Monk at Minton's jam sessions. The "Rhythm-a-ning" line can be heard on "Down on Teddy's Hill" and behind the introduction on "Guy's Got To Go" from the Newman recordings, but it is also a line from Mary Lou Williams' "Walkin' and Swingin'".

Clarke said Christian first showed him the chords to "Epistrophy" on a ukulele. These recordings have been packaged under a number of different titles, including "After Hours" and "The Immortal Charlie Christian." While the recording quality of many of these sessions is poor, they show Christian stretching out much longer than he could on the Benny Goodman sides. On the Minton's and Monroe's recordings, Christian can be heard taking multiple choruses on a single tune, playing long stretches of melodic ideas with ease.

Christian was just as adept with understatement as well. His work on the Goodman sextet sides "Soft Winds", "Till Tom Special", and "A Smo-o-o-oth One", show his use of very few, well placed melodic notes. His work on the Sextet's recordings of ballads "Stardust", "Memories of You", "Poor Butterfly", "I Surrender Dear" and "On the Alamo" as well as his work on "Profoundly Blue" with the Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet (1941) show hints of what was later to be called "cool jazz". Although credited for very few, Christian composed many of the original tunes recorded by the Benny Goodman Sextet.

 

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Health

Proposed gravesite of Charlie Christian in Gates Hill Cemetery, Bonham, Texas, based on eyewitness accounts from the funeral taken by Christian biographer Craig McKinney.

In the late 1930s Christian had contracted tuberculosis and in early 1940 was hospitalized for a short period in which the Goodman group was on hiatus due to Benny's back trouble. Goodman was hospitalized in the summer of 1940 after the band's brief stay at Santa Catalina Island, California, where the group stayed when on the west coast. Christian returned home to Oklahoma City, in late July 1940 before returning to New York City in September 1940. In early 1941, Christian resumed his hectic lifestyle, heading to Harlem for late-night jam sessions after finishing gigs with the Goodman Sextet and Orchestra in New York City. In June 1941 he was admitted to Seaview, a sanitarium on Staten Island in New York City. He was reported to be making progress, and Down Beat magazine reported in February 1942 that he and Cootie Williams were starting a band.

After a visit that same month to the hospital by tap dancer and drummer Marion Joseph "Taps" Miller, Christian declined in health and died March 2, 1942. He was 25 years old. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Bonham, Texas, and a Texas State Historical Commission Marker and headstone were placed in Gates Hill Cemetery in 1994. The location of the historical marker and headstone has been disputed.

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It is just amazing to me that he accomplished so much in such a short life.  It is also pretty remarkable that he has been gone for almost 70 years, yet his contribution to music lives on.  It certainly sets the bar pretty high for those of us looking to make our own contributions!  But then, a bar set high helps us stretch our limits.

Wishing you a wonderful, musical 2012.  Until next time,

Musician By Night . . .

Biréli Lagrène, a French jazz guitarist . . .

Biréli Lagrène (born September 4, 1966) is a French guitarist and bassist. He came to prominence in the 1980s for his Django Reinhardt-influenced style on the classical guitar, as well as for being a jazz fusion virtuoso on the electric guitar. He often performs within the swing, jazz fusion and post bop mediums.

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Biréli Lagrène was born on September 4, 1966, in Soufflenheim, Bas-Rhin Alsace, France, in a traditional Manouche-Romani people (Gypsy) family and community. He started playing the guitar at the age of four. He grew up in the loving but tough environment of the "tzigane". His father Fisso (a very gifted violinist), his mother Berga and his brother Gaiti were his biggest influences.

   Django Reinhardt

When, at the age of eight, he covered Django Reinhardt’s repertoire, his relatives were already calling him a child prodigy. Winning a Romani music festival in Strasbourg at the age of twelve gave him the opportunity to tour in Germany and, later, to record his performance on the LP Routes To Django - live At The Krokodil.

 

Offered a chance to leave for the United States, Lagrène met some of the most distinguished jazz musicians on the international scene, such as Stéphane Grappelli, Benny Goodman, and Benny Carter. In 1984, he met Larry Coryell in New York. Later, he was introduced to bassist Jaco Pastorius and ventured with him into jazz fusion. Together, they toured Europe, which contributed a great deal to Lagrène’s musical emancipation. Lagrène has also performed live with guitarist Al Di Meola.

             Al Di Meola                            Larry Coryell

                    

Back to a more traditional style, Lagrène recorded Gipsy Project and Gipsy Project and Friends in 2002. Along with his usual cohorts Diego Imbert (double bass) and Hono Winterstein (rhythm guitar), the latter session featured Henri Salvador and Thomas Dutronc (son of legendary French pop pair Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc).

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What a group of professional jazz artists that surrounded Biréli Lagrène as his career unfolded.  He couldn’t have been surrounded by any better jazz guitarists in the business.  When I first heard one of his songs, it just blew me away.  I strongly suggest that you pick-up one of his albums and give it a listen; I’m sure it’ll do the same for you as well.

If you have an appreciation for jazz, jazz fusion or jazz swing, you’ve got to check him out.  I’m trying to incorporate some of his guitar licks into my guitar playing where possible, but it isn’t easy, let me tell you. During my time off recuperating from the surgery, I am practicing as much as possible in an effort to incorporate as many different guitar styles in order to improve on my own and to develop a more broadened approach to the guitar fingerboard than I’ve had in the past.

           

         

Christmas is officially over with, however, we are still waiting to celebrate with our sons and their families.  Chris, (son in law)Dave and their son Eli will be here tomorrow and (son) Dave and his girlfriend Angelica will be here on Thursday, so we have a few busy days ahead of us, which will be fun and exciting.  We hope that you and your families had a very Merry Christmas and have plans underway for a Happy Healthy New Year !!

Until next time ~

Musician By Night . . .

Pat Martino

Pat Martino (born August 25, 1944) is an Italian-American jazz guitarist and composer within the post bop, fusion, mainstream jazz, soul jazz and hard bop idioms. Martin was born Pat Azzara in South Philadelphia and began playing professionally at age 15.

Martino played and recorded early in his career with musicians such as Willis Jackson and Eric Kloss. He also worked with many jazz organists, such as Charles Earland, Jack McDuff, Trudy Pitts, Jimmy Smith, Gene Ludwig, Don Patterson, Richard "Groove" Holmes. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Martino made many recordings as a sideman and also under his own name.

       

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In 1980, Martino underwent surgery as the result of a nearly fatal brain aneurysm. The surgery left him with amnesia, leaving him, among other things, without any memory of the guitar and his musical career. With the help of friends, computers, and his old recordings, Martino made a recovery, and learned to play the guitar again.

His improvisation method, "Conversion to Minor", is often mistakenly thought to be based upon using exclusively minor systems for soloing. In fact, the system involves conceptualizing chord progressions in terms of the relative minor chord/scale, but in practice this seems to be more a way for organizing the fretboard, rather than justifying playing certain tones in terms of whether they are "correct" or not. Martino's lines contain chromatic notes outside any particular IIm7 chord that might be conceptualized over a chord progression; even in the examples he provides in his books and instructional videos. Indeed, on his bulletin board he has stated that he formulated the system more as a way to explain his playing, rather than as something to use to create music. In his own words, "although the analysis of some of my recorded solos have been referred to as modal, personally I’ve never operated in that way. I’ve always depended upon my own melodic instinct, instead of scale like formulas".

Martino's return to music started once again with the 1987 recording The Return. In 2006, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab reissued Martino's album East! on Ultradisc UHR SACD. Martino tours worldwide. He was awarded 2004 Guitar Player of the Year, Downbeat Magazine's 2004 Reader's Poll.

Martino's new release "Live at Blues Alley" (on APM Records, executive producer Darryl J. Brodzinski) will be released on October 11, 2011.

     

Pat Martino “LIVE at Blues Alley” in Washington, DC

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Pat's Current Strings:

Pat uses GHS strings of gauges:

.015 .017 .024 .032 .042 .052
.016 .018 .026 .036 .048 .056

depending on the performance of a particular guitar.

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Pat Martino has been a teacher to most all of my guitar heroes.  His guitar work is mystical yet timeless, making him a legend amongst the top jazz guitarists.  George Benson, Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton, Al Di Meola and others have learned a lot and played along with Pat over the years that his own jazz style has  influenced so many other guitarists that his licks, chord phrasings, etc. will live on forever.

I hope you enjoyed this look at a jazz artist that is a Icon amongst all jazz guitarists.  There’s seems to be a little more jazz style guitar licks being implemented in todays blues and blues rock music than there ever was in the past so it helps to know a little about each type of music.

Have a wonderful evening and remember to give your kids a hug and kiss to show them that you love them.

Until next time, “Same Guitar Place; Same Guitar Channel . !”

Musician By Night . . .