StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Four from Pat Martino

With Russell Malone playing at Jazz at the Bistro last month and both Mike Stern and John McLaughlin in town this week, St. Louis audiences have had opportunities to hear some outstanding guitarists this fall. There's one more yet to come before winter officially arrives, as Pat Martino will be back here from Wednesday, December 1 through Saturday, December 4 to perform at the Bistro.

Martino's most recent appearance in St. Louis was in February of last year at the Bistro, and we covered his inspiring back story in a Video Showcase post then. Today, let's just look and listen to some clips of him as he does his thing.

The first video shows off something a bit different for Martino, as he's playing with a quintet, rather than his usual trio. The song is called "Boundary," and the rest of the band includes Delmar Brown on keyboards, Kenwood Dennard on drums, James Genus on bass and Eric Alexander on tenor sax.

Below that, you can see a clip from earlier this year of Martino playing with his current trio, featuring organist Tony Monaco and drummer Jason Brown, at the Zagreb Jazz Festival. The visuals on this-audience-shot video aren't great, but the audio is a more-than-adequate representation of the band's sound. The third clip was shot in June 2010 in Philadelphia at a benefit for Jazz Bridge, a charity that assists jazz musicians in that area, and features Martino talking briefly about his musical influences, and then playing "Lean Years."

The last video is one that's been making the rounds on the Internet since the dawn of YouTube, but since it's quite a nice clip and has never been featured here, it seems worth sharing. It features Martino performing the 1960s soul/pop hit "Sunny" in 2002 at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy with fellow guitarist John Scofield and his then-regular accompanists, organist Joey DeFrancesco and drummer Byron Landham. Martino goes first, then Sco and Joey get their licks in, and a good time apparently is had by all.