Stone Blue

Amazon.com
Few musicians in any genre or on any instrument can boast guitarist Pat Martino's combination of supple, fast mobility and rich, tight control. In the 1960s, Martino earned his chops playing in a number of organ combos with Jack McDuff, Richard "Groove" Holmes, and Jimmy Smith, so the overall concept of hard-hitting, funky music has been familiar to the guitarist for decades. On Stone Blue, he pushes the concept with his usually rotund sound and lightspeed dexterity, drawing off James Genus's sinuous electric bass and Eric Alexander's ultra-tight tenor saxophone execution. Martino takes many of the tunes off into the realm of jazz fusion circa mid-1970s, thanks in part to the keyboards of Delmar Brown. The music is always explorative, tossing together the group's funky collective feel and Martino's tense lines, where he runs parallel phrases at astonishing paces, and then lets his guitar sing in the background while his accompanists blast off funky solos. A rare longtimer in jazz, Martino shows stone cold genius on Stone Blue. --Andrew Bartlett

Jazz Times
Joined here by the admirable tenor saxist Eric Alexander and reliable bassist James Genus, the group navigates through a set of Martino originals that revisit his own corner of the fusion landscape. Mostly, the playing is intense--Martino's own, instantly identifiable style, the eloquent, clean-toned scramble--and the material builds of its built-in tensions...

Stone Blue,Pat Martino & Joyous Lake,Blue Note Records,Jazz,Jazz Music,Jazz-Pop,Mainstream Jazz,Pop,Post-Bop

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