PAT MARTINO Baiyina: The Clear Evidence

Pat Martino

"Baiyina: (A Psychedelic Excursion Through the Magical Mysteries of the Koran)

1968, Prestige Records



Wow... Killer, nicely weirded-out tripfest from guitarist Pat Martino. Heavy on heady sitars, tamboura and tabla, this is an ultra-rare release from one of the greatest and most adventurous jazz guitarists of all time. At this point, Martino was thoroughly entranced by Eastern mysticism and John Coltrane [who wasn't?] and the result is a cauldron of mesmerizing ostinato guitar figures set against angular backdrops of Indian polyrhythms and shape-shifting harmonics. This is perhaps one of the oddest releases on the normally straight-ahead soul-jazz torchbearer Prestige Records and an album that has long been considered a definitive document of both flower-power avant-jazz and exploratory world music symbiosis. Bassist Richard Davis is simply on fire here and holds together even the furthest-flung 7/4, 10/8 and 9/4 time signatures like he's playing root-fives over a 4/4 beat. The twelve-minute title track and the thirteen-minute "Distant Lands" are exotic-sounding attempts to convey the culture & the homilies of the Koran via music. It's exciting, exquisite stuff that frequently drifts cloud-like into dark, billowy formations of pure sound and texture furiously powered by whirling dervish beats.... His earlier release on Prestige, the superb "East!" , explored similar terrain in a more strict jazz-guitar based template -- but with equally stunning results.