Thinking Man

Secret recipe: Pat Martino created the melody for the song Think Tank by turning the letters in Coltrane, tenor and blue into notes using a homemade system of transposition. Photo By: Jimmy Katz

South Philly's Pat Martino cracks the code.

by Nate Chinen

"Think tank,’ as documented by the Oxford English Dictionary, came into common usage at the tail end of the 1950s. Describing ’an interdisciplinary group of specialist consultants,’ the term succinctly conveys the American admixture of self-assurance and insecurity that marked the Cold War. For decades, those two words evoked images of horn-rims, shirtsleeves, burnt coffee in Styrofoam.

But jazz fans may soon perceive the phrase in a different light. Think Tank is Pat Martino's newest disc on Blue Note Records, marking the guitarist's first quintet recording since 1977's Joyous Lake (Warner Bros.). Already earmarked for cross-promotion by the Gibson guitar company, the album signals another leap forward for Martino, whose last two Blue Note efforts, Live at Yoshi's and Stone Blue, respectively conveyed the sounds of soul-jazz and electric fusion. Martino's many admirers -- dating from both before and after his life-altering brain aneurysm in the early '80s -- will no doubt embrace the new album. As for the title, it's especially apt, given the assembled band: saxophonist Joe Lovano, pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, drummer Lewis Nash and bassist Christian McBride. This crew -- an interdisciplinary group of specialist consultants, if you will -- joined Martino in hatching Think Tank over a three-day period at Sony Studios in New York.

I think the project has a great deal to do with a framework that brought about social interaction at a higher level for each of us, Martino observes from his South Philadelphia home. The guitarist speaks with an uncommon eloquence that occasionally spirals off into elliptical but sensible arcs. For instance, he continues, there was a great deal of change, in terms of the intervals I chose to improvise with on the guitar, that I believe was the result of interface between the individuals present at that moment. It seemed to take occurrence of its own accord. In other situations I'm sure that I would have improvised in a completely different context.

Intellect and intuition congeal on the album, which pays homage to John Coltrane. The title track literally involves signifiers of the legendary saxophonist, arranged according to a system of Martino's clever design. Think Tank is a minor-key ode whose melody actually consists of a transposition of the words Coltrane, tenor and blue. Martino explains further: I took the English alphabet of 26 letters, and I focused my attention on the first seven of those letters, A-G -- those seven letters being similar to a seven-tone scale. Analyzing the letters tonally you have the Aeolian mode, in A minor. Then taking that and repetitively placing its mirror image across the alphabet, you have H-N, then O-U and so forth. So that's how the melody came up. This compositional method, which Martino originally devised as a conceptual exercise for one of his private students, yields surprisingly natural results here: The song, with its moody atmospherics and casually imploring line, transcends any academic conceit.

The rest of the album, although not conceived as an overt Coltrane tribute, manages to fall in line. Phineas Trane was borrowed from the pianist Harold Mabern, who intended a dual homage to Coltrane and pianist Phineas Newborn; Martino warmed to the intricate tune after playing it on an Eric Alexander recording. Meanwhile, Quatessence and Dozen Down, based on harmonic exercises Martino developed for students at the University of the Arts, both rely on the signature harmonic intervals that Coltrane brought into the mainstream. And then there's Africa, an actual movement from the saxophonist's Africa/Brass recording. Reinterpreted here, the song finds Martino articulating supple lines over a static yet rhythmically propulsive pedal point.

It's something that I had recorded on a 7-and-a-half-inch reel-to-reel tape way back at the beginning of the '60s, Martino says of the song, as a reminder that someday I wanted to take that melody and record it [for an album]. And during this project, that tape was found. So it came to fruition, made itself present and suddenly there's a great addition to the album. And when I began to add up all of these different repetitions of presence, it then occurred to me that unconsciously, this was a dedication to John Coltrane.

Of course, Coltrane was the most iconic jazz musician to hail from Philly, and the combination of his aura and Martino's presence render Think Tank an arguably Philadelphian product. It's an idea furthered, once again, by the songs on the disc. Sun on My Hands is an expressive ballad contributed by pianist Jim Ridl, one of Martino's closest collaborators for the past decade. (Performed on the record by Martino and Rubalcaba, the song will likely be featured prominently in mid-December, when Ridl joins Martino for duets at the Tin Angel.) Another song with Philly roots is Joe Ford's extroverted Earthlings, which Martino heard on a Charles Fambrough album.

Yet Martino stops short of designating Think Tank a product of Philly jazz -- just as he declines to discuss the sound of his newly formulated working band, with saxophonist Michael Pedicin Jr., pianist David Kikoski, bassist Jeff Pedras and drummer Scott Robinson. For Martino, speculation is distraction: No matter where I am, it's here, and no matter when it is, it's now. To me, what takes place at Zanzibar Blue is equivalent to what shall take place anywhere at any time. Then the guitarist adds, believably: I'm looking forward to that moment, when it comes.

Pat Martino plays Fri.-Sat., Oct. 10-11, 8 and 10 p.m., $35, Zanzibar Blue, Broad and Walnut sts., 215-732-4500.

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