“A Jazz Singer Fights Niagara Bottling” in The New Yorker.

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“Our group’s initial objection was that an enormous amount of the city of Kingston’s public water supply—1.75 million gallons per day—was to be sold to a bottling company to bottle and to sell without enough evidence that our water source could maintain that amount over the long haul,” she explained. “We were also disturbed that a multimillion-dollar corporation was allowed to purchase our water at a fraction of what local residents and businesses pay.” Generations of families in the area had invested in the local water infrastructure for a century, but, without warning, a water board could decide what would happen to a public resource without consulting the community. Martin and her fellow-activists began organizing public meetings to make residents aware of what was happening, and they went to meetings of the Kingston Common Council and Kingston Water Board to interrogate members on their decision-making. “That’s what we were managing—from my bedroom,” Martin said, laughing.

READ Full Article in The New Yorker

“You have to find your independence to be a good partner and collaborator.”

Photo credit: Pat Kepic

Photo credit: Pat Kepic

“As jazz singers go, Rebecca Martin exudes the plainest sort of poise, almost radical in its utter lack of flash. When she wasn’t cradling an acoustic guitar…she held her arms clasped behind her back, as if to make sure they wouldn’t be a distraction. She sang quietly, favoring slow tempos.  Her embellishments registered on the granular level, in the placement of a phrase or a light catch in her throat. She was unerringly faithful to the melodies of the songs, both standards and originals…she made them seem less like songs than like articulations of her state of mind.”

– Nate Chinen, The New York Times

Over the past 25 years, Rebecca Martin has been a professional musician, community organizer, educator, wife and mother. A native of Maine,  Martin moved to New York City and lived there for a decade before migrating North and landing in Kingston, New York.  There, she co-founded KingstonCitizens.org in 2006 as a way to understand the inner workings of local government and to create a platform for civic engagement in her new hometown.

“Music and community work involve different parts of my being, and it feels good and natural to exercise them both,” she says, drawing parallels between community organizing and her creative life. “Music requires time and space while organizing, details and time crunches. Both are intense.”

KingstonCitizens.org’s earliest projects included removing “souvenir” knives that turned out to be illegal weapons from a local gas station; from advocating for the city to create an updated comprehensive plan  to  discussing different forms of government.  (READ Rebecca Martin’s Editorial in the Kingston Timesand hosting many educational forums and debates with elected officials on dozens of topics spanning from sex offenders to meadow growing. Relevant topics were selected from month to month. “We wanted to give citizens the opportunity to understand the issues better and to provide them with an action that would include them in solutions. Our focus on education was primary from the start.”

“Rebecca Martin is known in Kingston as one of the city’s most committed and effective community activists. She was the first executive director of the Kingston Land Trust, which has become a formidable force for conservation, green spaces, and community building in the city.”  – Lynn Woods, The Kingston Times 

Martin was snatched up in 2010 to serve as the Executive Director of the Kingston Land Trust.  Under her leadership, the trust was touted as a ‘national model’ by the Land Trust Alliance in the organization’s effort to develop programming that could bring the community closer to its open space. Rebecca was instrumental in starting the non-profit group’s Urban Agriculture initiatives, Kingston’s Rail Trail program, and an effort to protect African-American history and burial grounds in the city of Kingston.

Read more

Rebecca Martin’s Collaborative Group with Guillermo Klein Called UPSTATE in New York Times.

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UPSTATE in Today’s New York Times Arts & Leisure Section. 

“BACK IN TOWN WITH TRICKY TUNES: A composer doesn’t necessarily mean a songwriter, especially in Jazz. Guillermo Klein, originally from Argentina, who has written brilliantly for his jazz groups in New York and Barcelona since the mid-90’s, never made a distinction. He creates pieces full of tricky counterpoint and canon, but h also writes emotionally direct, harmonically complex, circular songs to bee sung by himself and others….Not long ago, Mr. Klein moved back to the New York area and started collaborating with the singer Rebecca Martin and the bassist Larry Grenadier. The idea was to put lyrics to Mr. Klein’s compositions, but the repertory expanded to include other composer’s work, too. At the Rockwood Music Hall on Wednesday’s in February.”

The group is set to record in May of 2015 joined by the drummer Jeff Ballard. Recorded and Produced by Pete Rende.

CLICK on the FACEBOOK EVENT for ticket links to their performances.

New Video: “Don’t Mean A Thing At All” By Rebecca Martin

DON’T MEAN A THING AT ALL (from the album TWAIN)
R. Martin

When all of the house lights are taken down
And all of the people there
That traveled for hundreds of miles around
To hear their songs fill the air
Their beauty, the quiet and heaviness
The shadows they recall
Don’t mean a thing at all

A song would begin with a feeling
That’s had when the melody came
The words are assembled then written
Its meaning is somewhat relayed
On tip toes and reeling through misty eyes
The writing’s on the wall
Don’t mean a thing at all

Before the night gets underway
Your mind could change
What once was true that very day
Is now not the same

And there’s no way she could know
You couldn’t tell her so
The only way to live it was by giving it a go
No doubt there’ll be something for everyone
When turning every stone
She can’t leave well enough alone

“On a Sunday Morning”. A new original by Rebecca Martin.

On A Sunday Morning
R. Martin

What’s true for some
Just like a song could break your heart
When the sum is framed
To mislead them all
The fated cast

With the chances slim to none
Whenever the moment comes
To it may they rise.

For the years were long
and the night time too
On a Sunday morning
They’d had enough and the world had too
On a Sunday morning.

Now the chances are slim to none
Whenever the moment comes
To it may you rise.

For the years were long
and the night time too
On a Sunday morning
She’d had enough
and the world had too
On a Sunday morning.

Rebecca Martin & Larry Grenadier. “Portrait” by Charles Mingus.

Portrait
Words and music by Charles Mingus

I’ve seen all kinds of pictures
Most of the beauties of the world
From places I’ve traveled I still recall
This quaint melody as I thrill

Painting my own pictures in tones
I’ve painted all mother earth
Both flowers that brave the morn
Tones color the life she’s borne

I’ve tried to paint her beauties
From radiant skies to deep blue seas
The sky as she changes her glamour
Dawns pale blue sunsets amber

The winds and the vains
The lull on the plains
Leaves on the ground
Mountains gray brown
Tipped with a dash of glowing white snow.

Rebecca Martin Tour Dates Fall, 2014


Rebecca Martin will be performing this fall
as a duo with Bassist Larry Grenadier.

Thursday, August 28th
Soundwaves Concert Series
Westport, NY

Thursday, October 30th
Palm Jazz Festival
Gilwice, Poland

Saturday, November 1st
AMR
Geneve, Switzerland

Sunday, November 2nd
Enjoy Jazz Festival
Mannheim, Germany

Tuesday, November 4th
La Faiencerie
La Tronche, France Read more

Rebecca’s Collaborative Group TILLERY Live in LA, CA (9/25/13)

Watch Rebecca Martin’s collaborative group TILLERY (Rebecca Martin, Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens) perform live at Blue Whale in LA, CA. The three perform “Tillery” written by Becca Stevens with poetry by Jane Tyson Clement and Becca Stevens.

TILLERY will head into the studio in January, 2014. Recorded by Pete Rende.