Jazz for aficionados

@tyray, Neither did I mention Grant Green, or Kenny Burrell, or Russell Malone. There are many, many, great guitarists. And the great ones all played archtop’s. Was that because they too were traditionalists? I’m not saying Pat Martino wasn’t a gifted player. But he lost me with his tone. We each hear differently. Non Musicians hear differently than Pro’s. I’m not a pro, but I recognize what great guitar tone is. Without good tone you’ve completely lost my interest. It’s as everything you had to say is now irrelevant because your tone is crap. All my opinion. 

The guitar choices of Martino are dictated and chosen for and by his particular way of picking "chords"...

He is a genius in his way to use some chords like no one did in guitar jazz america... We need a musician to confirm this, i am not one...

But it seems to me that his style is something i would described by the word "speaking" before "singing"...His guitar playing remind me of some master of the ud or tanbur in near-eastern music or north africa... His guitar spoke to sing and before singing , not sing first, save in some pieces he plays, times to times orthodoxically and out of his own chords syntax system.......

His genius for me is not so much playing beautiful melodies which he is very able to do by the way sometimes, BUT inducing mantra-like "spoken chords" repetiting/varying formulas, making him able to integrate anything in his flowing moves....Often the musicians playing with him are NOT SIDE co-players but disciples...They play like him in his language....

Rythm ,melody,and harmony unite in something "vertical" that mimic or resemble no "beautiful linear melodic singing" but Hypnotic trance ... Like the mystic greatest master of Tanbur Ostad Elahi....Like dancing Sufi music...

I truly think that Martino is a mystic....Not only the usual musician....his music is so frenetically powerful because of that... But i know many people for example that dont like the last Sciabin nor Ostad Elahi, because we must really open our mind to some new "consciousness" level to learn HOW to listen to that with the right part of our soul and brain...My Music tastes changed all my life absorbing something new completely times to times...music is not like meals a question of taste, music is too much linked to our soul to be only a "taste", music is a set of perspectives encompassing the human soul and nourrishing it....Some music must be  LEARNED to be LOVED...

One thing is sure the guitar of Martino is not always like an easy enchanting melodic line, but a zig-zag abyss between rythm and harmony...For me it is so intense that i prefer him to most more " beautiful" easy listenings players, like Grant Green for example whom i like so much...But Martino is in an another class of its own over all jazz guitarist i know...

I am not shocked easily...I like almost all styles of music of all countries or era...

In a word there exist probably a "Martino" cult... Like A Bruckner cult, a Wagner cult, a Scriabin cult, these 3 masters also in their own way wanted to grip you by the sheer force of their "chord" mastery...

The last Coltrane or Miles Davis induce also something like that with his own means...Chet Baker so demolished in his soul and body, go on with a playing that lost all "innovations" potential to concentrate on the "spoken" nude words where there is nothing left save an intimate articulate murmur conveying emotions WITHOUT any spectacular sound ( the opposite of the creative Miles Davis)...

It’s as everything you had to say is now irrelevant because your tone is crap. All my opinion.

Well it would seem buy consensus here on audiogon that more agree with me than you. And that is a fact, and has nothing to do with opinion. By the way I played drums, not a pro but have ben playing since I was 6 and have very good ’tone’.