Great art
often arises out of transition and displacement. For the extraordinary
Swiss-born, Boston/New York-based vocalist and composer Gabriela Martina creating a
body of original music in her new setting has meant grappling with big
questions and forging a singular sound out of a disparate array of influences,
from jazz, funk and pop to gospel and Alpine roots music (as a child Martina
yodeled in her family's Swiss singing group). Martina's arresting and utterly
personal debut album No White Shoes introduces a rapidly evolving artist
steeped in jazz but unfettered by the music's prevailing conventions.
Martina has
cultivated a powerfully evocative sound with her crystalline voice, honed
through concerts throughout the world.
She's performed with Meshell Ndegeocello, Jack DeJohnette, and Angelique
Kidjo, and recorded with veteran drummer J.R. Robinson. In addition, she performed
at the 2009 Montreux Jazz Festival in guitarist Lee Ritenour's band as a
semi-finalist in the Shure Voice Competition.
Though No
White Shoes includes a couple of brilliantly interpreted jazz standards,
Martina focuses on improvisation-laced originals that combine singer/songwriter
introspection with sophisticated harmonies. Informed and inspired by the
quietly tumultuous process of acculturation, she uses music as a vehicle to
wrestle with her protean identity.
The album
opens with "Narcissus," a song that elaborates on the symbolism of the
album's striking cover art, with Martina's face obscured by a mirror. More than
a source of expression, Martina's music is a vehicle for hard-won
self-knowledge.
Sassy,
mesmerizing, and tinged with funk, the celebratory "No White Shoes"
speaks to Martina's eagerness to break free from mainstream conventions. As it
builds to an ecstatic climax, it's easy to see why this plea and declaration
became the album's centerpiece. Conceived as a rejection of Switzerland's cozy
cultural cocoon, the song speaks to Martina's insistence on hewing to her own
path.
"In
Switzerland everything is so comfortable and so beautiful on the surface,"
Martina says. "It's a song about breaking boundaries and questioning
traditions and musical conventions. It's a positive message. It stands for new
ways, for something other than the mainstream, for being your own self, and
walking your own way."
More than a
singer/songwriter, Martina is also a savvy bandleader who has attracted a core
band featuring some of Boston's finest players. A working ensemble for about
four years, her band is built upon the supple rhythmic support of drummer Alex
Bailey, a player with the chops to join heavyweights like Oscar Peterson and
David "Fuze" Fiuczynski. He forms a potent rhythm section tandem with
another rising young Boston star and recent Berklee grad Kyle Miles on acoustic
and electric bass, a highly versatile player who has accompanied Angelique
Kidjo, Patrice Rushen, Greg Osby, and Roy Hargrove, among many others.
The
brilliant Czech-born pianist Jiri Nedoma, a prolific accompanist who has
collaborated with the Grammy Award-winning drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and
vocalist Gabrielle Goodman, brings a probing harmonic sensibility and canny use
of space into the ensemble. And internationally raised Finnish guitarist Jussi
Reijonen, whose credits include work with drum star Jack DeJohnette, flamenco
legend Pepe de Lucia, Palestinian oud/violin master Simon Shaheen, and fretless
guitar pioneer David Fiuczynski, reaches effortlessly across genre conventions.
Born in
Lucerne, Switzerland, Martina was no stranger to urban settings before moving
to Boston. But she spent her childhood in a bucolic idyll, amidst a family
dairy farm surrounded by orchards. The third of four children in a tight-knit
working class family, she grew up in a highly musical environment. At the age
of five, she discovered her passion for singing while yodeling with her
family's traditional Swiss group.
Before
coming to Berklee College of Music in 2008, Martina studied at the Vocaltech
Music School in London and the Jazzschool in Lucerne. While there, she became a ubiquitous presence
on the Swiss scene, performing with an array of bands including Talking Loud,
Soulvirus, the pop-rock group PinkBliss, the electro/urban trio Aromat, an a
cappella duo Not2help, and her own jazz duo with pianist Luzia von Wyl.
In 2010
Martina released a critically hailed EP Curiosity, which included her original
song "Ain't Nobody", a finalist in the ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz
Composer Awards 2012. Performing around US East Coast and beyond, she has honed
her original repertoire with her band at clubs around the region. She's also
the co-founder of IMS, an ongoing, bi-weekly free improvisation concert series
which began in 2013 in Cambridge, MA.
Her album No
White Shoes represents a major step in the singer's sojourn as a 21st century
musician exploring an array of influences, styles and issues, a journey that's
intoxicating and utterly unpredictable.
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