Linear Expressions - Pat Martino

By Pat Martino

Clear and concise Will take the player to the next level of playing Very melodic and useful

Very interesting book, clever and educational. But unfortunately for me, even if the first part of the book can be used without any reading skill, the last part needs some. Well, I should learn... Anyway, some ideas are really useful and open your hears. Some work needed !

Excellent book by an excellent Jazz musician. Written in a clear and concise manner and offers an excellent introduction to Jazz improvisation.

If you're interested in jazz guitar(or seriously interested in guitar or modern music) you need this. The list of recommendations on the inside says it all - Les Paul, Howard Roberts, Jerb Ellis, Johnny Smith, Tal Farlow, Joe Pass. Pat is 'one of these people' but more - there's...

something indefinably more modern and further out about his playing but he remains firmly jazz rather than 'fusion'. If you don't know him I recommend 'Foot prints'(sometimes released as 'the voyage'. You'll need to be able to read at the very basic level. The examples given here are all in simple 8th notes, the bare bones of his style, which is why I give it an intermediate rating. Apart from that you need some basic music theory - how chords and scales relate to each other. Begin a voyage to the further shores of music here.

This is an excellent book for guitarists who would like to see a different approach to improvising over chord changes. It gives very good insight into the guitar style of Pat Martino as well as his unconventional but logical approach to the guitar. It is definately not a beginer's...

book, but with a reasonable amount of practise a guitarist with a few years experience can work through it. It is well worth the effort to give this book a thorough read and work through the examples and exercises.