Pat Martino: To Renew A Life In Jazz

AAJ: Your father really wanted you to take up the guitar again, not so much yourself.

PM: Of course. All the instruments were here. And furthermore, his ritual on Saturday was to listen to all my recordings in the house. So he would go to the basement, turn on his record player, and I would hear the music coming through the floors, which I disliked very much, primarily because at that time, the music had nothing to do with me. So this went on and on, until I moved. I went to Japan for a while. Then I went to Amsterdam for a few months.

AAJ: These weren't musical tours, just trips you took?

PM: Yes, and I did consider living in these places. But both times I was called back home to be of assistance. My father called and said, 'Mom isn't doing well.' The second time he called: 'Mom is bedridden now, and I think she's not going to be with us long.' So I came back from Amsterdam the second time. And then I remained here, and ironically, in the midst of my own recovery, it could no longer be a priority. Both mom and dad were getting older. So I put my own recovery on pause and did whatever needed to be done. In 1989, my mother passed away, and then in 1990 my father passed away. At which time I still had no interest in music, even though I tried to the best I could in 1987 to play again publicly. I'd already picked up the guitar in the process and doodled with it. Along with the medications I'd been given after the operation-antidepressants-I also had certain forms of therapy. I was at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital for a while. I spent time at Einstein Mt. Sinai in a locked ward.

AAJ: A locked ward?

PM: Yes, because rage was coming out of me. I was enraged-everything had fallen apart. I had gone through these things and finally was released. And procrastination continued, until the procrastination produced boredom, which in turn became the canvas for the decision itself. That's when something started happening. I decided to this for myself.

AAJ: Without the sense of what the music might mean to you? Sort of mechanically?

PM: Mechanically, yes. The psychiatrist at the Institute suggested I get involved with a computer. So I got a small Macintosh Apple with the tiny screen, and in that 127k system was a music program. And I started playing with that like a toy, just like when I was a child, the only difference was mom and dad no longer could say, 'Stop playing and do your homework!' I'd already done my homework. Now I could play. That was the first stage of re-development: playfulness, where I began to lose myself and lose my depression in graphic doodles on this little machine. And when the music program came into it and I could take the cursor and weave the arrow of the mouse across the keyboard, all the notes would come out and they'd go right on the staff! I was impressed. I began to become more and more playful with that stage of playfulness, until finally I began to manipulate the notes themselves, in the same playfulness, with no responsibilities in terms of a career.

After I took care of my parents' estate, I had a decision. I was going to go back to Amsterdam, but I decided to stay in Philadelphia, primarily because I left Philadelphia when I was fifteen, and I was comfortable now that things were taken care of, so I remained. Getting back to the true power of development and the most valuable conclusion of my own interpretation of it was that I remembered a time initially when I was extremely volatile in terms of blame and judgment about all of the physicians and psychologists who had worked with me in the earlier years prior to the proper diagnosis of the aneurysm, which came from a CT-scan. Prior to that, the doctors thought I had manic depression and had me in locked wards. Hey even gave me electric shock treatments.

AAJ: That was prior to the surgery for the aneurysm?

PM: This was long before that, when I was getting seizures.

AAJ: How could they misdiagnosis this?

PM: I was enraged and extremely judgmental about it all. Finally, when I was given the diagnosis as a readout from the CT-scan, a joy actually came to me at that moment. The joy was because I had endured, and temperance was felt for the first time as a virtue. I saw this as a valuable experience, with no need for blame anymore, because I knew what it was, and I gained strength at this point. This is prior to the surgery and the amnesia. That was forgotten, but did release itself in time to come, and I did remember that moment.

So, it came down to very simple facets that have a great deal of meaning in terms of recovery from any form of ailment, I would think, and I've tried to interact with a lot of people about that, in terms of visiting different hospitals.

AAJ: As a result of your experience, what would you like to convey to others have undergone amnesia, and all those who have suffered trauma in their lives?

PM: Well, not only do you forget all of the things that are supposedly important to you, but forget all of the things that are not important to you. So there's some irony in this. You may have what you thought was valuable, but in the process itself, you gain so much value, primarily because you are a clean slate, the board has been wiped.

AAJ: Like the Zen master who raps on your back with the stick?

PM: Yes, yes, exactly. And you reach a point where you're at the beginning. And what I found at the beginning was what I wanted at the beginning. I wanted to play like any child wants to play. My parents did well: they taught me how to survive. Now, I had forgotten how to survive. But all I had done in the process layed the framework, the architecture for the stability in my life. That never went away, that's solid. But the one thing I began to treasure was the ability to be playful again in a childish way with no interruption from others. And I gave more credibility to the child, in terms of childishness itself, and no longer worried about my career, or ever reaching a stage where I felt that I accomplished all that I set out to do. There was nothing to set out to do. In fact, everything was right in front of me at all times. There was nowhere to go any further. There was nowhere to look back. There was no need to look back. I didn't remember the past. I had no interest in finding something for the future. I was more interested in putting an end to the depressive moment of right now that was on me so deeply and so intensely. And at that point, I started to re-experience jazz at the moment. It happened with the guitar. It happened with just about everything.

AAJ: That's very beautiful. One of the top psychiatrists in the trauma field, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, has emphasized the importance of play and playfulness in recovery from trauma.

PM: You can't attain that as an 'adult'-that's your childish self, the self that has been subdued by our social and cultural demands. The part of you that wants to ride that bicycle, and culture will not allow you to do this, because you have to be at work at 9 o'clock. All of these things subdue the healing element.

AAJ: That's a way of saying how much the social neurosis operates in our lives.

PM: Of course. When you were born, you were exactly where you were supposed to be and how you were supposed to be. Just as you are now. (Chuckles')

AAJ: That also fits with the Zen idea that the true self is beyond words, beyond memory, desire, and understanding. There is a self, a being, a presence that exists prior to all that. You had a chance to access that self (or non-self, as some say) in a very direct way and use it to heal.

PM: Yes. I step back and look at dissonance and consonance, I look at my self, I look at my ego looking at the same central point of value, truthfulness, and purpose. And it's an amazing experience.

SPIRITUALITY

AAJ: We're getting into the area of spirituality. You've praised Coltrane for the way his spirituality was present in his music and vice-versa. You seem to have a similar kind of striving.

PM: Very much so.

AAJ: Do you have a specific philosophy, meditative practice, and/or religious preference?

PM: I was born and raised a Roman Catholic. I went to parochial school until tenth grade, then to public high school. I then went out to Harlem, and the only thing that was transcendental during that period of transition in Harlem was love. Love came from the people who found it necessary to watch over me. Being where I was, as young as I was, with so little experience, I noticed their concern and their compassion. And it transcended any kind of financial attainment and achievement with regard to judgmental critique on behalf of the magazines, the record companies. The one thing was that they cared. I learned how important it was to care for others. To go out of my way. To make the moment magical. To do something loveable was to provide love within myself. When that started to take place, what I had sought from religion itself became unnecessary to find in the midst of its rituals. It became unnecessary to seek in the community for this. It became more of an active element of life itself. It's hard to say 'spiritual.' It is spiritual but at the same time it's loving life itself. It has its moments of forgetfulness. Those are the moments that it becomes spiritual. Only those moments. Because those are the moments that labels for what it stands for re-reveal themselves due to prior interests.

When I'm feeling the power of love itself, and I'm feeling the fulfillment and joy of my own life at that very moment, I'm feeling what I refer to as God. I'm feeling what I refer to as love, the love of all things. I'm feeling what I refer to as 'I Am,' the Name of God, in the biblical sense. I'm feeling at that moment that I Am what I want, where I want to be. When I'm not in that plane, when I'm humanized, so to speak, then it's necessary to use such words as God. As love. In fact, any words. And these things bring the importance to focus on what is most important to me, my true self. Even though I may not be able to come into the mess that I've created, I must be Conscious in the midst of what I've created myself.

These are issues that I see in a more mechanistic context in terms of the senses. And that's where spiritualism and religion are necessities.

AAJ: To transcend the senses?

PM: Yes. This is really where it's at. This is what makes it so beautiful and so joyful. It's when this succumbs to other necessities that it is the constant.

AAJ: So you see spirituality in life, not so much in a specific set of beliefs or practices?

PM: Yes, in life. It's similar to 'A Course in Miracles.' And that is one of the sources that I find extremely applicable whenever I'm blinded.

AAJ: So you use 'A Course in Miracles?'

PM: I use 'A Course in Miracles.' I use the Bible. I use the Koran. I use the I Ching. I use the Kabbalah. I use Annie Besant's 'The Ancient Wisdom.' I use all these things that remind me of the truthfulness of creative mobility.

LIFE TODAY

AAJ: To lighten things up a bit, I've always wondered whether an accomplished jazz musician such as yourself continues to use a daily warmup and practice.

PM: To some degree, but it's extremely important to maintain ones relationship to ones favorite toy. And my favorite toy is the guitar. (Chuckles.) And the joy of it comes from holding it in my hands, and playing with it and fiddling with it. And I need to do that daily. I do that unconsciously. I awaken in the morning and have a cup of tea or coffee, and I pick up the guitar, put it on my lap, and I just activate it with my hand, just like a boxer who punches a bag to keep his muscles up. I do that, sipping on my coffee, while hearing a word or two on radio. And it all happens spontaneously.

AAJ: Do you know Jimmy Bruno?

PM: Sure. Jimmy's a very close friend.

AAJ: Do the two of you ever swap notes?

PM: No we haven't, as much as both of us would like to do. I'm sure we shall at some point. We do sometimes share ideas we find exciting. We're both active at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

AAJ: Do they have a guitar department?

PM: They do, yes. It's excellent. Tom Giacabetti, Mike Quaile, and Craig Ebner are over there. Quite a number of really great players.

AAJ: I read about your lovely Japanese wife, Ayako Asahi, and I saw her at Zanzibar Blue when you performed there. Could you talk a bit about your relationship? Do you work together?

PM: We play! We don't 'work.' We love each other very deeply. We love everything we do. We're together 24 hours a day. The only time we're not together is when I'm on the road, if and when she doesn't come with me. She is totally involved in the continuance of good health. She's totally involved in growing wheat grass, fruits and vegetables. She's teaching me so much about diet. She's teaching me so much about adapting to something that I would rather not adapt to-in other words alleviating habit, confronting dislike itself as a 'friend.'

AAJ: Explain.

PM: There's nothing I've disliked more than asparagus (laughter). And eggplant. (laughter.) Nowadays, I really enjoy them. I've learned to love them. Because, even though I said to her, 'I don't like that,' she made it again (more laughter). And again after that. And each time she made it, she made it differently until I fell in love with it. The Japanese culture is very interesting. So in that way, I've learned a lot about myself in terms of re-adaptation.

AAJ: Asparagus and eggplant. (Extended laughter.)

PM: And that applies to so much many things in life. It's just personality-so that's how I work! I remember I used to eat because there was an emptiness in my stomach. I just wanted to fill it up. I used to eat for the taste of it, the experience of the senses, not what it did for me. These learnings are what are coming to me through the relationship. These adaptations to a longevity, a greater strength.

I remember a time when I weighed 86 pounds and they were going to give me a lung transplant. From pneumonia. I flew in from Paris in 1999 with pneumonia, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. They put me in intensive care. They had me on oxygen. The doctors at Jefferson decided I needed both lungs transplanted. They shipped me over to Temple, for further procedures. Right at that point, my wife couldn't take it and took over, and in a period of five weeks, I went up to 165 pounds in six weeks. Between Ayako, my wife and Marian Garfinkel, a masterful yogi, doing basic yogic positions and diet. Everything has changed, without the lung transplant, with no medication whatsoever. Life is a miracle. Everything is a miracle. There is nothing but miracles. The only thing other than miracles is distractive. That's what everything is: miraculous. The entire process. I would think that the first scream of the infant is the reaction to distraction from the miracle of living.

Ayako and I have a fantastic relationship. She's learned guitar. She uses the guitar in yogic positions. She uses the guitar to stretch, a Gibson L4, a heavy guitar like an ES175. She'll take it and lie flat on the floor on her back, with the guitar on her chest, and she'll be playing 12 tone scales across the neck. And she's doing this to alleviate pain in her spine that she suffered as a child when she fell and was injured. Her back pains can't be healed. So instead of prescribed medicines, she'll pick up the guitar. It's amazing how much we share with each other.

AAJ: You both discover new parts of yourself.

PM: Yes, that's great. It's really healthy. And all of this, in a sense, protrudes into the music. Most musicians see a circle around their music. That they have to step out of this life into the other. I don't see that. But I know it's there. I'm forced to have faith that that sort of thing always takes care of itself, and that everything turns into music and that one thing helps another. So it's a constant acceptance of everything that happens, and it happens as it should happen. It's a living process. And the reason I describe it that way is on account of the categories that these questions have reveled into.

Spiritualism is another circle. Active living protrudes itself across that circle. And musicianship. Myself as an 'American;' an 'Italian.' These are all circles of truth. These are all things that I am. But life itself protrudes all of these labels and terms. And it's difficult to say what is of any importance other than 'now,' and whatever is taking place is a different manifestation of the same thing. And there's a familiarity in that. And that's where the comfort comes from in any form of development. When I pick up the instrument I'm comfortable with it. It's second nature. It's a vehicle. In itself, it's no longer important at all.

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