content: Pat Martino's unbelievably beautiful album, "The Maker", transcends the typical jazz guitar outing where many of todays artists are out to prove they are "the fastest guns in the west" by playing well practiced licks on tunes that the great Wes Montgomery wrote over thirty years ago. That's not what jazz is about and never was. Here, on the other hand, Pat uses his overwhelming knowledge of harmony to create exotic and other-worldly textures to carryout his singular creative vision. These five portraits-in-miniature include changes in time, mood, and feel, and along with the unerring support of the great Jim Ridl and Marc Johnson to give us, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest jazz recordings of our time. This record is an absolute must for the serious jazz fan.