Pat Martino may be the only guitarist who ever learned how to play his instrument twice; the first time as a highly competitive teenager fueled, as he says, "by a desire to fit in with adults." The second learning of the guitar was the result of battling the amnesia following a nearly fatal brain aneurysm, leaving him void of any knowledge of the guitar and his status as a major player. Gradually, his disinterest in the instrument was replaced by an entirely new source of motivation to relearn, one that Martino describes as spiritual in origin, pursued, currently as well as then, only "to ultimately enjoy the richness of life itself."

One of the legendary Philadelphia musicians, in a city known for its jazz pedigree, Martino, was introduced to both jazz and the guitar through his father, who not only studied for a short time with guitar legend Eddie Lang but frequently brought his son to local Philly club dates. This resulted in the young aspiring musician meeting both John Coltrane and Wes Montgomery - the influence of both obvious in Martino's playing and spirituality. Though Martino entered the professional music scene with pop stars like Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon, Chubby Checker and Bobby Darin, his skills soon brought him work with artists established in rhythm and blues and jazz, like Charles Earland, Lloyd Price and Willis Jackson.

Earland's implementation of Martino as part of his organ trio was tremendously influential, resulting in Martino working with organists Richard "Groove" Holmes, Jack McDuff, Don Patterson and Trudy Pitts in the years that followed.

Since he returned to the stage in 1984, Martino has fronted a variety of ensembles including a reunion of his popular Joyous Lake band for his sophomore Blue Note release Stone Blue and his critically acclaimed label debut All Sides Now which found some of the best guitarists on the jazz scene paying tribute to Pat's influence with an album of stunning guitar collaborations.

His latest Blue Note release, Live At Yoshi's is Martino's twentieth album as a leader. In mid-December of last year, Martino, organ wizard Joey DeFrancesco and drum patriarch Billy Hart invited an audience at one of the country's premier jazz clubs, Yoshi's in Oakland, to share the riches that continue to fuel the revived guitar sage. Given the audience response evident throughout, Martino wasn't the only figure in the room who felt something transcendent.

"We really enjoyed that particular engagement," Martino recalls. "The audience was really hardcore. I can't tell you how nice it was interacting with them."

The date also represented a return to a lineup he hadn't pursued for nearly two decades. "With the exception of a Charles Earland tribute project," he recalls, "the last time I worked in an organ trio format was sometime in the early '80s when I had just started playing again."

Martino is coupled with the manic support of young organist Joey DeFrancesco, whose creative phrasing and comfort with improvising at breakneck speed nearly parallels Martino's. DeFrancesco's presence on Live At Yoshi's came about via the late organist Charles Earland. "When Charlie passed away, Highnote Records recorded a tribute with all the players who had been involved with his music. The label asked me if I would come in and do a couple of cuts, and Joey was on that session."

The new album represents a career overview not only in terms of instrumentation, but in Pat's carefully selected choice of repetoire. "All of the songs chosen for Live at Yoshi's had been recorded before for different projects at different times throughout the years. I thought it would be interesting to record them together in a live performance all at once; moving them from set-time to real-time.

"'Oleo' was originally recorded in 1970 on my album Desperado. 'All Blues' was recorded with myself, Don Patterson and Billy James as sidemen on Eric Kloss's first album for Prestige in 1965 called Introducing Eric Kloss. 'Mac Tough' was recorded in 1998 for Blue Note Records on Stone Blue with Joyous Lake. 'Welcome to a Prayer' originally appeared on The Maker in 1995 on Evidence. 'El Hombre' was the title track from my first public recording on Prestige Records in 1967. 'Recollection,' 'Blue in Green' and 'Catch' were recorded by Muse Records in 1994 on an album called Interchange."

Martino tears into the opening bars of Sonny Rollins' "Oleo" with the intensity that lesser players hope to muster up by the evening's final cut. The guitarist's cool tone spins off vicious lines of head-spinning dexterity that, as is evident by the Martino-worshipping audience's response, assured all present that he continues to reign as both rhythm sophisticate and improviser at nosebleed pace. And the power never lets up, not on the slower, simpler "All Blues" nor the ten-minute minor key ballad "Welcome to a Prayer" that appears later. The adulatory response to Martino's set is far more spirited than is usually found on a live recording. "Audiences on this trio tour were as excited and enthusiastic as I can remember."

Pat Martino, whose post-amnesia, late '80s albums showed him valiantly struggling to reestablish a style and improvisational abilities, has, seven albums later, released the most potent album of his career.

Oddly, though Yoshi's was most likely filled with worshipful fellow pickers, Martino's renewed connection with jazz downplays the role of the guitar. "The guitar is a machine, a tool very much like a pencil or pen," says Martino. "Once I'm comfortable with the tool, that becomes second nature to me, and I never think about how to hold it, what's uncomfortable about its use. What I think of most of all is what it's being used for. With a pencil or pen, the text coming through its point is much more important than the demands that the instrument may have on its use. So, I focus so deeply on the text that I don't even think of the instrument that I'm using to proliferate that text."

Martino is pleasantly surprised to find that the organ trio format is popular again. "I've always believed, though, that in a transcendental way there are seasons in terms of idiomatic marketing," he states. "What goes around, comes around. There's always a way back. It's just a matter of timing."

Though this is Martino's third outing on Blue Note, he remains appreciative of the association. "I'm really happy with the label connection. It's something I wanted to establish back when I was a youngster signed to Prestige Records. My next target was Blue Note, because of the creditability of those two main labels for recording classic jazz. I moved on to Warner Bros., Cobblestone, Buddha Records and other labels, but throughout all those years I still wanted what I'd set out to achieve - an affiliation with Blue Note. Finally, in 1995 or 1996, Bruce Lundvall came into the Blue Note club in New York City where I was performing at the time, and we finally got together."

Read more about Pat Martino at JazzSteps.com.