(2004, MAXJAZZ)

The New York Times: Appreciating Life’s Mixed Emotions

JazzReview.com:  Crossing Musical Boundaries

JazzReview.com by Don Williamson: People Behave Like Ballads

All About Jazz: Here The Same But Different

 

“The relaxed self-possession in the songs and in Ms. Martin’s dusky, middle-range voice, which stretches out on vowels for a while before the vibrato kicks in, suggests that she may not particularly care whose camp she’s put in, or who she’s compared to.”
– Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

“Rebecca Martin’s last recording, Middlehope, demonstrated conclusively that she is a unique interpreter of standards in intimate, beguiling, personal, enticing, sensual, captivating, alluring…absolutely enthralling… wonderful even… ways (see review ). One might assume, as does the first question in this interview, that her way with a chestnut probably got her signed to MAXJAZZ, a label with a growing roster of enchanting chanteuses of the jazz cannon. One would be wrong – assumptions won’t do for Rebecca Martin. You see, whatever measure of skill and individuality she displays with her incendiary way with a torch song (a measure already in the five-star range), it is far surpassed by her own way with her own tunes.”
– Phil DiPietro, All About Jazz

“Just when it appeared that MAXJAZZ’s Vocal Series was predictable as it raised the profiles of deserving jazz singers without major-label contracts, it has gone outside of the box to stretch the accepted wisdom’s definition of jazz by presenting Rebecca Martin’s individualistic music, on which she behaves like an artist who is developing her own identity separate from that of any other singer.”
– Don Williamson, Jazz Review