Pat Martino Trio live in Rotterdam

For many years I have been a huge Pat Martino fan. I have written about him several times in my Blog. There's many jazz guitarists I really dig but there is not a single one I dig more than Pat. The man speaks to me like no other player does. Always a great sound, monster chops and his music always seems to strike home with me. Of course I have most of his music but  ... I had never seen him live in concert though. So when I heard he was playing in Rotterdam I quickly ordered my tickets. I was finally going to see my hero!

The Pat Martino Trio played in a theatre called "Lantaren Venster" in Rotterdam. Pat was accompanied by Pat Bianchi on the Hammond organ and Carmen Intorre Jr. on drums. It was the same trio that I had seen on a remarkable video registration of a concert in Poland in 2014. I have written about that concert earlier. Click here to view it. I went to see the same trio that was recorded a year ago in that great video.

The concert was absolutely fantastic. The set list was not very suprising - I kind of guessed right what tunes he was going to play. The band was very tight and expertly went through a set of standards closely associated with Pat. He actually played most of the tunes I would have liked him to play: Full House, Lean Years, Blue in Green, All Blues, Oleo, Round Midnight, Catch, Sunny and some other "Martinoisms." What could go wrong? That's what I and the audience wanted and that's what he gave us. I did notice some new  reharmonisations on tunes like All Blues and Oleo that I had never heard earlier on recordings of the same tunes. Very cool stuff.

Pat had a huge and really powerful sound. I noticed he was running his amp through a Marshall cabinet and he moved "a lot of air" indeed - as one of ny Facebook friends who so eloquently put it. He did not speak very much during the concert but he was charming enough when he did. It was great seeing the legend with my own eyes.

The audience clearly loved the concert and so did I. Finally I had seen The Man live! For an impression here's a few clippings I glued together. The tunes are: Full House, Lean Years, Round Midnight and Oleo. The sound is lofi but could be worse.

Pat Martino Trio at Lantaren Venster Rotterdam, May 13 2015.