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Pat Martino is definitely one of the great intellectuals on the guitar. His approach there is a great way of visualising harmony on the guitar. Every time another musician (it's usually classical pianists) makes a bitchy remark about guitarists' sight-reading skills, I just give them a quick explanation of how complex the guitar really is relative to the keyboard or any fifths-tuned stringed instruments, and they change their tune pretty quickly. It's one of the great challenges all guitarists/bassists face, as a lot of things that other instruments take for granted are very difficult to either visualise or execute on the guitar. There've been major advances made this century, but the guitar is still leagues behind other instruments.
Incidentally, while we're talking about this issue, one of the things that most impressed me about Rusty Cooley's playing when I discovered his music wasn't his speed, it was his approach to mapping out the neck, which I think is far in advance of a lot of standard guitar pedagogy, and is something that guitarists of all styles should take the time to study.
Visualising the guitar geometrically, to the extent Martino does is interesting, as I've heard that a lot of master musicians (particularly those with perfect pitch) actually have mild disorders which cause them to equate sounds with other things, such as shapes, or colours. Although it's technically a mental disorder, it apparently helps them visualise and play music...
Oh, and 'Live at Yoshi's' is a killer album. If you're after more Martino, check out 'Think Tank'...
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