After a part of his brain was removed, guitarist Pat Martino got his groove back | Hacker News Reader

After a part of his brain was removed, guitarist Pat Martino got his groove back

nautil.us

Martino was amazing. He had some of the wildest "lines". You can think of an improvised guitar solo as a series of small blocks/lines with breaks in between to think, or just rest your fingers. Martino's lines just keep going on and on, similar to John Coltrane. Or Allan Holdsworth.

Here's Martino playing John Coltrane's Impressions. It's so tastefully played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrrdbS2spkQ

My personal favorite is his record Baiyina. It's very trippy, full of odd-time signatures, sitar-like drones, tabla etc. Recorded quite early in the fusion era too.

The Live at Yoshi's record with Billy Hart and Joey DeFrancesco is fantastic as well. Pat Martino at the top of his game playing with a very tight rhythm section.

> Here's Martino playing John Coltrane's Impressions.

It starts off well, but soon crosses the line into "random with rhythm". Is that just jazz? Maybe. But arguably it fails the "musicality" test.

Was that your first listen?

Some music/art requires several exposures before you begin to understand or appreciate what the artist is up to.

so, funny enough i always thought this as well. i have since stopped condescending to others about what they should or shouldn’t like.

I am ashamed to say that, having been trained in classical music, I used to think exactly the same thing about jazz. Jazz for me was either elevator music or random noises mixed together. Until I finally listened to it seriously and studied it. I learned more about music, harmony, music theory and playing techniques in a couple of years than in a decade of classical training and listening. Even as a very mediocre player, I can reach creative heights that I never could before, when I just played what's on the page.

Just because I did not understand what's going on because of a lack of the required background does not mean that it is not musical. Not everything is packaged in easily digestible bits, some things require more, much more work, and the reward is much better.

One thing I can assure you, despite being a pure improvisation, nothing in that performance is random or out of place.

if you understand music the way you claim to you’re not a mediocre player, although you could be transitioning from ‘mediocre’ to ‘pretty good’

jazz is a personality thing. there are many great musicians who can’t stand jazz and don’t respect jazz players. i’m not saying that’s correct, i’m just saying that is. A range of opinions exist at all levels of the art, and since it’s art, the artists are right to have their opinions.

all that being said, i’m with scoot

I am a really mediocre player. But one can be a mediocre cook and understand and appreciate fine cuisine, or a couch athlete and understand the subtleties of football strategies. It's the difference between passive analysis and action.

And I certainly understand if someone dislike jazz. But saying it's not music is like saying Picasso's paintings are like a three-year old's drawings.

My programming skills are awful, meaning, I dont know too many languages and tools.

But I understand program architecture pretty deeply, and complex systems architecture is something I deeply just grok so the analogy you make makes sense to me.

scoot didn’t say it wasn’t music, and i’d rip him a new one, metaphorically, if he did. he said it wasn’t musical. many people say that to mean it doesn’t have a melody they like or can attach themselves to. i also think he may have meant to say use the word ‘lyrical’ which some use in the same way. i get you though.

rtsil - i also very much agree with your first paragraph there.

try listening to einstein on the beach. there’s a lot of bullshit non musicality going on in there, specifically to contrast with the more lyrical elements. that’s one of the greatest pieces of music of all time in my opinion.

picassos paintings are like a 3 yr olds drawings. that’s why they’re so special. the wonder of a child with the experience of a man. breathtaking artist.

as i get older and progress as a musician, i am more aware how bs the "right to their opinions" is. you can tell how good a player is within like 2 bars most of the time. its not ambiguous, and people generally go through a similar musical maturation path. also, can you name a great instrumentalist who doesnt respect "jazz players"?

yes, but i won’t

one of the more amazing comments ive seen here on hn

Just to be clear, you’re pro allowing people to have their own opinions? Or anti?

i mean, that may sound flippant, but i think it’s a reasonable response to

> i am more aware how bs the "right to their opinions" is

i think the person who designed the juciero is a better engineer than nikola tesla

did the person/persons who designed the juciero design anything else that would maybe support your contention?

i get the point that you’re trying to make, and I appreciate that the juciero is a great example of a bs product, but I don’t take your point because I don’t think our arguments are comparable.

Also, your two bar theory is utter bs in my experience.

So jazz isn’t random with rhythm, it’s pseudorandom with rhythm you can’t dance to. Still not feeling it.

Note that “jazz” without further context is referring to over 7 decades of styles.

You absolutely can dance to jazz, depending on the song and rhythm.

Jazz is not random, nor pseudorandom. (That would make it a lot easier for me in my solos, but also would ultimately make jazz a very boring genre). It may sound like that to a new ear - jazz is not particularly accessible compared to other genres. But for the most part it follows forms and has a regular structure.

It’s a living, mostly ephemeral thing. It’s a live conversation - listen to the interactions between the players, it’s not static.

I’m on mobile at the moment but here are some good songs/albums:

[0]: https://youtu.be/qjrGjomFhpQ

[1]: https://youtu.be/YovfrsCML48

[2]: (this album has two takes of the same song, so you can compare the solos and see how they handle them differently) https://youtu.be/Ykm517sOieE

what you are doing is picking up a copy of hamlet in a language you cant read, looking at it for 30 seconds, and then declaring shakespeare sucks

Thank you, I was trying to think of a way of responding to the GP, but couldn't do as well as this! It's a very good metaphor. Perhaps even closer: "and then declaring 'Plays suck'." (Also, Martino is hardly jazz's Shakespeare.)

>what you are doing is picking up a copy of hamlet in a language you cant read, looking at it for 30 seconds, and then declaring

I don’t like this elizabethan bullshit, i find it unpleasant, and rather than waste my time on something that I feel doesn’t deserve my time, I’m gonna read some michael crighton. or maybe some dean koontz, stephen king or heck, tom clancy. it’s my life and I like what I like, and I encourage everyone to like what they like personally, and not allow themselves to be goaded into reading taming of the shrew, even if that is the best thing ole billy boy ever wrote.

also before all you culture warriors jump all over me for liking shakespeare, i’m talking about the version of tots as portrayed on moonlighting with bruce willis and cybil shepherd

>jump all over me for liking shakespeare

I'm losing track of this

it’s a joke

I don’t think anyone here is saying what one can and can’t like things. I personally was just responding to the idea that jazz somehow “fails the musicality test”.

If you prefer classical or whatever, awesome!

that’s because no one downvoting me understands what i’m saying. musicality is a property of music. i am not saying it’s not music, i’m saying it’s often not musical, especially to some. that’s a fact of the universe that you can either accept or continue to be ignorant. i feel like i’ve made a good faith effort to explain myself and expand the understanding of those on here who may care. moving on.

i actually like jazz, i play a lot of jazz, i bought an amazing guitar 25 years ago that has been recorded, not by me, on 17 jazz records that i find to be pretty amazing. so like, i get what you persons are saying, but like unmusical music is something you’d be exposed to in a well run music 101 class in college/university

19 actually

I'd add on to this: when you listen to a piece of music, you subconsciously anticipate what will come next, and you get enjoyment from the way the piece meets or surprises your expectations. This plays a big part in the perception of musicality.

Jazz artists play with their listeners' expectations just like artists in any other genre of music, but people who listen to a lot of jazz have developed a set of expectations that others don't have. Jazz listeners find jazz musical and viscerally enjoyable in the same way listeners of other genres enjoy their music - it's not (only) an abstract intellectual appreciation, which I get the impression a lot of people suspect.

To me, a better analogy than reading Shakespeare in a language you don't understand is watching a sport you don't know the rules to. We're both watching the same people make the same moves, but if you don't know the rules, you don't know what to expect, and every move looks random and purposeless. Someone who knows the rules watches the same thing and is able to enjoy the interplay between the expected and unexpected, to appreciate the skill and the moments of brilliance and drama, on what I think few would claim is not a visceral level.

There is nothing random in that solo, he never even really plays anything that a typical jazz player would consider outside playing.

While I enjoy jazz, I can at least agree that this particular example is not very listenable for the uninitiated.

The pace is quick, and the backing under Pat's solo is very sparse - just some drums and a quick walking bass, the keyboardist is barely audible for half the piece. Easy to lose track of where they are in the changes unless you know the piece well. If you know a jazz standard well though, it becomes easier to appreciate where the soloist subverts or plays around the changes.

nothing remotely random. if you want to understand, learn to play. in about 10-15 years you could look back and laugh at your comment here. since you for sure wont do that, ill just say that basically what hees doing is phrasing all over the bar. its so funny... putting every eighth note right on the money at 300 bpm, let alone with lines that good, is so hard. very few people can do it well, and millions of people aspire to.

It's not random at all, he's just playing the changes, it's not even outside. Random notes would sound a lot different, maybe it's just rapid stream of notes that don't sit well with you, that's the bebop sound, maybe you would appreciate (slow) blues improvisation more, or cool jazz.

For those like me who wanted to see the MRI, and were frustrated that it wasn't in the article, it's here: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S18788750130123... It's pretty spectacular. From a Google Images search that lead to this article - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18788... - but presumably showing Google more images than normal visitors who aren't logged in.

On Monday, Nov. 1 2021, Martino died after suffering from a chronic respiratory disorder. He was 77.

Martino recovered from surgery with a significant portion of his brain and memory gone, but his guitar skills intact.

I used to run a discussion group for people with neurological quirks. The details of how the brain works and the strange exceptions you wouldn't predict are endlessly fascinating.

Tell us more.

I personally think that Oliver Sacks' "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" should be required reading in school for providing an understanding of how seemingly illogically our logic engine works.

It's made me more understanding of 'how people work', and as a result has helped me deal with difficult people in a less combative manner.

The Man Who Mistook His Patients For A Publishing Opportunity.

;,)

(2015)

He passed away a few days ago. RIP, quite a poignant story.

Enjoying this live performance from 1975: https://youtu.be/lNZbyjsggbw

First Chick Corea, now Pat Martino. This has been a sad year for jazz lovers.

Rick Beato did a tribute to him 4 days ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUfLZjIQigQ

An aspect of Pat that I don't see discussed much is that he had absolute pitch according to various comments I've seen online.

I'd be very curious as to whether that was affected by the surgery. I think it would also have helped him with the remarkable recovery as well.

I don't have absolute pitch but pretty good relative pitch and can't see how it would've helped.

Someone with absolute pitch doesn't, necessarily, understand the relationship between notes. That has to be learned by studying music. I.e. being able to hear that a C and and Eb have been played doesn't tell you that they form a minor third and that minor third can be used to form all sorts of different chords/sounds.

At least that's my conjecture. I'd love to hear from someone who has perfect/absolute pitch if they agree.

(Perfect pitch here, jazz pianist.) Yes, what you say sounds right. Although I don't remember a time before I knew lots of things about minor 3rds, so I don't know what that's like, or which came first. I don't know if there are many people with perfect pitch and without childhood music training/practice—I don't think so.

I also have no idea why it would help with brain recovery.

Perfect pitch for a jazz improviser is a bit like a super power. Audiation - the audio equivalent of visualisation - is a key part of jazz improv. Having absolute pitch means you don’t have work quite as hard to translate those ideas onto your instrument (it’s still work though).

I’ve studied Pat’s playing a lot and transcribed several of his solos. The “muscle memory” seems to be a huge part of his playing as he has so much great dorian material under his fingers and he knows how to connect all those ideas really well, and how to repurpose them over various other chord types. WRT perfect pitch I think that must have helped him to build all that vocabulary in the first place. I’m just wondering whether he retained the ability after the op and how he related to it in his playing.

Coda - “absolute pitch” is a biological phenomenon. People recognise a C as easily as we recognise the colour red. “True pitch” is a variation where people play an instrument for so long that they can remember the sound of a pitch on that instrument. It’s a slower, less reliable process. Many people get the two confused

Yeah, I'm surprised people without it manage so well! not having it really seems to me like seeing a colour and having no idea what colour it is, very strange.

> Having absolute pitch means you don’t have work quite as hard to translate those ideas onto your instrument (it’s still work though).

I'm puzzled by this though. I play piano (mainly). I don't have 'ideas' then 'translate' them onto my instrument. I hear something (in my head) and play it, as one. It's like breathing. Nothing like 'work', let alone hard work. Also, for me, to hear music, notes and chords, I just know what the notes and chords are as I hear them (most of the time, unless they're super-super-weird chords, or it's very fast or something), like I dont hear a chord and work out that its say C7#11, I just hear a C7#11 chord. And see it being played on a keyboard in my mind's eye.

Did he lose his skills due to a problem in his brain and then get them back when it was removed? Or did he just have brain surgery and it took him a while to recover?

Martino had been performing until a hemorrhaged arteriovenous malformation caused a "near-fatal seizure" in 1980. This left him with amnesia and no recollection or knowledge of his career or how to play the very instrument that made him successful. Martino says he came out of surgery with complete forgetfulness, learning to focus on the present instead of the past or what may lie ahead. He was forced to learn how to play the guitar from zero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Martino

Also check out this documentary:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=EQ2FyXZwg9E

Motor skills and timing, like guitar twchnique, seem to reside in the cerebellum.

Reminds me of the musician who played the violin while having brain surgery at Mayo Clinic:

https://youtu.be/T3QQOQAILZw

The view that function is strictly tied to some particular piece of the brain like a machine is simplistic.

It is simplistic but not fully wrong, when you remove a part of the brain you often don't kill the person, instead the person just lost a part of their mental functions. This is a fact, and based on that we can say that some functions tend to live in some parts of the brain.

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