The electric guitar/Hammond organ partnership, that earthy, straight-for-the-jugular jazz genre that was so popular in the 1960s (think of the Jimmy Smith/ Kenny Burrell and Jack McDuff/George Benson dialogues), is still a dead cert if you want to fill a jazz club. And if the guitarist made his reputation 30 years ago and then vanished, you have a major draw.
That was the case with the trio led by the 56-year-old Philadelphia guitarist Pat Martino - astonishingly, making his UK debut.
Though a disgruntled punter collared me on his way out to yell in my ear that Martino's partners were "too fucking loud", organist Joey DeFrancesco and drummer Byron Landham were a good deal more restrained than some practitioners in this small venue.
The sensation of volume was deceptive, partly occasioned by the contrast with Martino's mellow sound, his fondness for the middle register, and his rhythmic acuity, which sometimes substituted evaporating mutters and drumbeat-like accents for explicit melody lines.
Martino often used to jam with Wes Montgomery in his youth, and his style reflects much of Montgomery's suppleness of line, elegant, extended phrasing and inventive blending of single-line playing and chords. That he is back and playing as well or better than ever is remarkable considering that the interruption in his career in 1980 was caused by a brain aneurysm that almost killed him, and obliterated all memory of how to play the guitar, obliging him to learn it again from scratch.
Martino's soft, plummy tone swerved and swung seamlessly over Landham's crisp percussion and DeFrancesco's relaxed nudging at the keys. His fast lines were dazzling, but the clinchers were the sidelong resolving slurs, or a sudden stutter of repeating notes so fast it resembled a blown sound.
He rarely played high - his tone imparted a darker timbre even when he did - and any speed seemed to suit him, although the mid-tempo bluesy groove is both his and DeFrancesco's forte. And the guitarist's insertion of It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing into one infectious uptempo exercise was as much a personal mission statement as a piece of relaxed improvising.
At the Pizza Express Jazz Club, London W1 (020 7439 8722), tonight.
