Customer Reviews

El Hombre

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I concur explicitly with the review above calling this album a "revelation" for those unfamiliar. I find this music extremely hip to my ear, an ear raised on classic rock and folk/blues, but also trained in and very fond of the jazz idiom. What Pat sets up for me with this album is a feeling for how to overlay your own groove on top of everyone else's. "Waltz for Geri" and "Once I loved" are classics; Pat definitely makes Once I Loved his own. Mixed in with only a very few mediocre moments are a good number of moments that are pure gold. Get hip to Pat's sound! (He got it all back again too.) Incorporate his musical notions into your own voice and you won't be sorry.

The music, and particularly the organ sound, may take getting used to for some, but this is a great jazz guitar album. The tone is perfect to my ears, and it comes not only from choice of amp, strings, guitar, and recording-technique, but from a mastery of the instrument that gives an effortless quality to the playing. The lines are cool with the occasional flair of fire. The fire is pretty incredible, more so because it is done with such ease.

The compositions and arrangements are great, especially if you have a love of latin jazz. You get the latin rhythm section and flute...such a beautiful sound.

The album has such power because it is delivered with so much groove and finesse; and it just sounds really, really good. Probably my fav of the discography.

I love discovering new and amazing things. Pat Martino has been to me, until last week when I bought this CD, a name I'd run across occasionally as I read Amazon reviews of other guitarists in the "People who bought this also bought..." section. I decided to give this a try, and boy am I glad I did.

I have rarely heard a guitarist play with such assurance. It's as if he knows exactly where he is going, what notes he is going to play, and how to build a solo to a perfect climax well in advance. Impeccable technique - every note is clean, even in the fastest passages. And the ensemble is on fire! The organ playing exciting, the percussion section right on. Even the flutist (one of my least favorite instruments outside of a classical context) adds alot to the sound with some great solos and duets with the guitar. The only problem I have now is saving money for the next Martino CD.

A gotta-have for any guitarist, jazz lover or not.
Thanks

This is an album that Austin Powers, International Man Of Mystery, would definitely have in his collection. It's just so hip and swinging no self-respecting playboy could afford to be without it. And if you are a serious lover of jazz guitar, jazz organ, small combo jazz, or just plain "feel-good" music, then neither can you. Trust me, it will get your feet tapping and your fingers snapping. How can you go wrong? "El Hombre" not only has one of the top guitarists and top organists of the 1960s, but also flute, congas, and--dig it--bongos, the official instrument of the Beat Generation.

Pat Martino is a favorite of mine, but it took me a while to work back to this album. The guy just oozes musicality here. His playing is relaxed and nimble, his tone clean and liquid. Like Pass and Montgomery, Martino's licks seem to come out of him with a seemingly effortless instinct. You can't learn to talk with your instrument like this--you are born with it.

Trudy Pitts is the perfect match for him on organ. Her sound changes and dynamics are fabulous, always enhancing and complementing the guitar, never crowding it. She also gets sounds out of the Hammond B-3 that you don't hear from other famous players. At one point I was wondering if she was in fact playing a B-3, and not a Wurlitzer, or something.

Drummer Mitch Fine really drives this group along, swinging with the command of a Blakey or Jones and, again, ornamenting but not stepping on the soloists. I'll have to keep an eye out for other records he appeared on.

Rounding this out with flute and Latin percussion gives the record a real nice mix of styles and sounds. I only wish it were longer, but I imagine there weren't any left-over tracks lying around in the vault.

Do yourself a favor. If you are at all partial to Sixties organ combo jazz, snap this baby up. You'll be grooving in no time flat.