Der Steppenwolf

Qué pasaría si ud. despertara un día cualquiera y no pudiera reconocer a ninguna de las personas a su alrededor, no recordara cual es su profesión, sus gustos, sus odios, donde vive, en donde trabaja, etc, etc…? Cual sería su reacción frente a la vida? Empezar desde cero? Cambiar de vida?

No estamos tan lejos de una película. Esto le sucedió al músico de Jazz Pat Martino. En 1980 se sometió a una operación cerebral para corregir una aneurisma que le provocó la pérdida de la memoria y cualquier habilidad para tocar:

When the anesthesia wore off, Pat Martino looked up hazily at his parents and his doctors. and tried to piece together any memory of his life.

One of the greatest guitarists in jazz. Martino had suffered a severe brain aneurysm and underwent surgery after being told that his condition could be terminal. After his operations he could remember almost nothing. He barely recognized his parents. and had no memory of his guitar or his career. He remembers feeling as if he had been “dropped cold, empty, neutral, cleansed…naked.”

En la siguiente entrevista se habla un poco más sobre su enfermedad:

AAJ: The memories are all there, but not available to the conscious mind.

PM: Yeah, they say the memories are all there, but inaccessible. However, one of the side effects is lack of retention, a deficit in short term memory. The amnesia revealed itself after the operation. I was told that I recognized no one, even my mom and dad. I came back to this house after the operations, and one thing that was part of the house was the history of my career. My father had all of my guitars, which were returned from California, where I had been living. Since I had the operation in Philadelphia, I flew back here. All of my things were flown back, and everything else was taken care of by my family. So here I was beginning to recover surrounded by something I had nothing to do with, because it meant nothing to me, but I could not disagree that this was the truth, that I was a guitar player, that this was my career, that I knew how to play guitar, that these were my albums, these were pictures of me. This is Les Paul. Yes, Les is on the phone and wants to talk to you. Here�s a picture of you and Les. Here�s an album- and Les did the liner notes- that�s who this is. Inside, that meant nothing to me- I couldn�t relate- this was just another name that was meaningless to me.

This continued, and each and every time I opened myself up to someone like Les, George Benson, Bobby Rose, Franky Day, and so many others. All of these people touched upon something in their comments that caused an explosive subliminal release inside me that revealed the truth about something we had in common. And slowly but surely, piece by piece, interrelationships began to revive themselves. But still, I had no interest in music. This was due to my father�s respect for me as a jazz artist, I developed an expectation that was actually distasteful for me. This was something I was expected to do by others, when all I wanted to do was recover- not become something I’m not.

Esta conclusión del artista es bastante interesante, la ironía del asunto es que se olvida todo… completamente todo…

AAJ: As a result of your experience, what would you like to convey to others have undergone amnesia, and all those who have suffered trauma in their lives?

PM: Well, not only do you forget all of the things that are supposedly important to you, but forget all of the things that are not important to you. So there�s some irony in this. You may have what you thought was valuable, but in the process itself, you gain so much value, primarily because you are a clean slate, the board has been wiped.

Su recuperación demuestra lo maravilloso y desconocido de la mente y el cerebro:

In the following months. Martino made a remarkable recovery. Through intensive study of his own historic recordings, and with the help of computer technology, Pat managed to reverse his memory loss and return to form on his instrument. His past recordings eventually became “an old friend, a spiritual experience which remained beautiful and honest.” This recovery fits in perfectly with Pat’s illustrious personal history.

Pat volvería a grabar en 1987, dando lugar al álbum “The Return”

Aquí un video del año 2002 (con John Scofield):

Enlaces:

Página oficial del Artista

Pat Martino en Last.fm

Pat Martino en Allmusic