Martino was born Patrick Azara in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. After moving to New York City, he started playing professionally at the age of 15. He lived with Les Paul for a while and began to play in jazz clubs such as Smalls Paradise. He later moved into a suite at the President Hotel on 48th Street. He will play at Smalls for six months of the year, and then in the summer at the Harlem Club in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Martino played and recorded with Lloyd Price, Willis Jackson and Eric Klaus early in his career. He has also worked with jazz organists Charles Earland, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Jack McDuff, Don Patterson, Trudy Pitts, Jimmy Smith, Gene Ludwig and Joey DeFrancesco.
Martino continued to perform until 1980 when hemorrhagic arteriovenous malformations caused “near-fatal seizures.” This made him amnesia, and he has no memories or knowledge of his career or how to play the instruments that made him successful.
Martino said he was completely forgetful from the operation and learned to focus on the present rather than what may happen in the past or future. He was forced to learn to play guitar from scratch. This situation is essential to understand his career and his special way of thinking. Martino married Ayako Asahi Martino in Tokyo, Japan in 1995.
He was selected as the guitarist of the year in a 2004 Down Beat magazine reader vote. In 2006, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab re-released his album East! On Ultradisc UHR SACD. In 2017, he shot a series of educational videos called “A Study of Opposites and Its Performance on the Guitar”.
A true American hero and a living legend until today, now is a complete legend forever.
Rest in Peace, Maestro!
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