Scott Allan Robinson

Pat Martino: Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery

by John Barron
February 23, 2007

The last thing jazz needs is more tribute projects that merely perpetuate the ever-increasing stagnation of an industry trying to make a fast buck off the legacy of fallen giants. At first glance it would appear that this is exactly what Remember is all about. But fortunately, the artist paying tribute here is Philadelphian Pat Martino, a bona fide giant of jazz guitar who maintains the same rapid-fire intensity that put him on the jazz map in the 1960s.

Martino ...

Pat Martino: Remember: A Tribute To Wes Montgomery

by Russ Musto
August 18, 2006

The tribute album allows an artist to document his indebtedness to another's influence on his own style with a more fully formed personal approach and individual voice. It shines a spotlight on the honoree's body of work in a way that no single record in that artist's discography did during his lifetime. And it introduces a new generation to the efforts of a player from a previous era. This album achieves success on these planes in a way that few ...

Pat Martino: Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery

by Nic Jones
April 28, 2006

Make no mistake--this is a tribute not only to Wes Montgomery, but also the resilience of human creativity. While this might smack of hyperbole, it should be remembered that Martino completely forgot how to play the guitar some 26 years ago as a result of brain surgery, and if diligence and application can supply the kind of results heard here, then any suggestion of hyperbole is surely questionable.

To hear a musician as in touch with his or her instrument ...

Pat Martino: Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery

by Chris May
April 26, 2006

The safest course of action on encountering a tribute album is usually to run like hell in the opposite direction. Which is why this beautiful album stayed unplayed for a couple of weeks before finally, thank God, finding the deck.

This recording is just lovely. If Wes Montgomery was alive today, this is almost certainly what he would sound like. But he isn't. It's what Pat Martino sounds like today, when revisiting his primary formative influence. And that's what validates ...

Pat Martino: Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery

by John Kelman
April 21, 2006

Guitarist Pat Martino has overcome far more than his share of obstacles. Emerging in the mid-1960s, he released a string of acclaimed albums starting with the classic El Hombre (Prestige, 1967) and ending with the overlooked fusion classic Joyous Lake (Warner Bros., 1977). Then a brain aneurysm literally stole his identity and for the next decade he struggled to regain who he was, both as a person and as a musician.

Since then Martino's dark-toned and rapid-fire but always swinging ...