I did it, I wrote a French rap—that was the idea to end one of my new four songs and Marina helped me write it, my dear friend who lives in Paris. We went there together during the Viet Nam war (enrolled in “philosophe” at the Sorbonne, but everyone was on strike)—and she never came back.
 
So here it is, my archetypes, only in French.  Got the idea from one of my influences: medical intuitive/mystic Carolyn Myss, who says we all have twelve archetypes. Archetypes like Jung’s—generalized patterns like story characters that we enact in our individuated incarnation in order to learn the lessons (or not) that it’s our lot to learn: we learn through acting them out in our life stories.  
 
The archetypes are neutral—they have a golden side and a dark side.  We all share four: the child, the victim, the saboteur, and the prostitute.  The rest are up for grabs.  What are yours?
 
But initially I just set out to write a French rap, and I had one line, “C’est le saboteur…qui me fait peur…”   (because the saboteur sabotages through fear)
 
And I had some other lame ideas, and then suddenly I realized, maybe I could use all my archetypes and make simple couplets, but I would need help: Marina!  Creative work together is something we have done and will do :)
 
So I explained the archetypes and how mine are working in my life right now and wallah!— Marina came up with more cool couplets that just fit and we’ve been working on them (indeed she was here for a visit & shored up my pronunciation—her daughter and my also-bud Veda leads French tours out of LA).
 
So you see, it’s not really just me expressing myself in these, but also Marina so you’ll never know which is which!  Again, a true collaborative effort, gotta love it—
 
And the thing is, the 12 French couplets all just fit, in the ending we had recorded, the twelfth one just ends on the end of the song :)
 
You’ll see it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek—but archetypes are pretty fun and very cool… and helpful, you bet.  Any effort at consciousness is helpful don’t you think?
 
Most importantly of course, wait until you hear the song!  (Still under wraps…:).
 
Here’s the French:
 
C’est le saboteur
Qui me fait peur
 
Mais pas la pionnierre, qui,    
Toujours me nourrit     
 
Puis la prostituée
Se ballade dans la journée
 
L’amant, lui, me fâche
Il est toujours si lâche !  
 
La rebelle en moi s’éclate
Alors nous prenons date
 
J’suis donc une artiste
Ca éclaire mes pistes                                                     
 
Oh-là-là, la mère ! 
Me fait payer bien cher !
 
Meme la professeure  
Peut-etre c’est un leurre
 
Surtout c’est l’enfant       
Qui me guide maintenant
 
La victime partout
Les prend tous jusqu’au bout
 
Le délivreur est la   
C’est mieux quand il s’en va
 
En fin la déesse      
Est la source de ma sagesse  
 
 
And here’s a translation:
 
It’s the saboteur who causes me fear
 
But not the pioneer, who always nourishes me
 
Then the prostitute… she strolls in the daytime
 
The lover— he makes me mad—he’s always so lax
 
The rebel in me strikes—and then we make a date
 
Therefore I’m an artist—and that lights my paths
 
Oh-la-la the mother—costs me dearly
 
Ditto the professeur—maybe he’s a lure
 
Mainly it’s the child who guides me now
 
The victim everywhere—takes every one to the limit
 
The rescuer is there—it’s better when he leaves
 
Finally the goddess is the source of my wisdom
 
 
But it sounds better in French!!
 
Write me please, send me anything.  If I had a thousand dollars for every dear friend I haven’t contacted lately, all my debts would be paid off…

If you prefer headlines, skip to the end...
(But don't miss the plugs for my brilliant friends...)
 
My New Album!
It's a concept album, in some important ways (you know... everybody's always trying to get you to describe your work in categorical terms).
 
So here’s the concept, tweeters, for this album :)
Different genres of music—Brazilian jazz, soul, folk, country, blues (centered more or less around 1970)—and a few jazz standards (30s+), in Afro-Brazilian rhythms.
 
And I must add, it’s being developed collaboratively and improvised with some of the greatest musicians working in LA——completely jazz that way, this so-called coming “concept” album.
 
Okay, here’s the plan, fates willing.  I will release The First Four as an EP.
This EP with my first four tracks will include three different genres of music (two of one): two Brazilian jazz (yes Jobim!) one country, and an old bluesy standard. 
These tracks started in samba reggae rhythms and evolved to include elements of reggae, traditional Rio samba, samba afro, baião, and xote.   
 
There you have it!  When the EP is ready, you’ll hear about it.
 
Moreover, the above rhythms are among those to be found in my collaborator Kirk’s new books !!!!  Kirk plays on my CD and we developed the different feels for the songs together with Liz Kinnon the pianist and musical director (as well as the other musicians): check out Kirk Brundage’s beautiful blue (Intro), red (Carnaval) and white (Candomble) manual series on Afro-Brazilian percussion, books that I edited at various points :), get them
at Alfred.com or at Amazon—on sale there for only 11.99!
http://www.amazon.com/Kirk-Brundage/e/B004VMVAAM
 
While you’re out & about, check out my piano player Liz Kinnon’s CD Ms. Behavin’ for some glorious, exuberant, soaring, smokin’ Brazilian/American jazz—Liz is a great composer and a great musician.  With husband Dick Mitchell, master reeds man, who plays on my Dulce—here’s the CD:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lizkinnon
 
Also playing on my new recordings, beside piano and percussion—that is, on Dulce Amor (demo), The First Four (jazz movements… soon!) and the full CD (to come)—are:
Enzo Todesco on drums, Roberto Montero on guitar, and Hussain Jiffry on bass.
 
And you must—especially you Playtime fans—please check out the new CD, To Eva, With Love from my vocal coach, Trelawny Rose, without whom my vocals would not be happening like this…
https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/amikaeylatrelawnyrose
Talk about great cross-genre music—Eva Cassidy, one of my idols: Tim Prince turned me on to Eva Cassidy—he was my engineer and helped produce my first CD.
 
And speaking of, last but not least, that little CD, softly, is still going strong.  If you haven’t bought it, you should! You’re listening to it on my site, unless you turned it off, which you can easily if you need to :)
https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/kaymartin
 
There!  That’s my blog!!
 
Okay here's the rest of the headlines:
 
RIP
 
The Playtime band is no more—may she rest in peace, and in the glow of glowing about all the sweet hours we’ve spent playing music—which we will still do (in fact, soon) just not as Playtime.  But Barb and Mark and Linda have formed a new band, with grandson Elijah, 18, on bass.  It’s wonderful, and they call themselves The Shady Characters :).
And you can catch them at Vino Prima on the Santa Cruz Wharf when you can—go get on their mailing list: just write Barb Gerry at barbetteg@comcast.net.

My Sis

I have to update the last blog on this site, about my sister—those of you who know me well, know my (younger) sister went into congestive heart failure late this last November.  Happily she is doing very well with her New Valve (it should probably have a name).
 

Following up

Those of you who didn’t get your free Mp3 versions of my prequel release, Dulce Amor (or Day After Day, in my original lyrics)—too bad, missed your chance.  But I’ll be happy to send you another prequel pretty soon—gorgeous Dulce Amor—always with my great CD band—with new vocals.  You’ll like it  :)
There’ll be other gigs, I promise.  Write me anytime you feel like it, please!  kay@kaymartinmusic.com

Recently spent time on Kauai with my family (how fortunate can you get?) and my sister—singer-songwriter Ibby Cline (www.ibbycline.com)—had gotten a gig there, and I sang in with her and Richard Armentrout at a great venue in Kapaa on the eastern shore not far below Lihue: Trees. Comfortable, no-nonsense, music-focused place with good food.  Hawaiian music in various forms predominates on the island (and is it lovely) but jazz is also to be found on Kauai, as well as good ol' fashioned (or even new-fashioned) rock 'n roll.  This trip I learned more about the spiritual as well as the political history of the ancient Hawaiians.  I think the atmosphere itself imparts joy— it does for me.  Aloha, and Mahalo.

Is it weird to avoid writing about my CD that I'm working on— in this blog about my music— when that's the MAIN OVERWHELMING musical thing going on in my life? 
 
Is it okay if i write about camping instead? 
 
I think you know what I mean.  You can't talk (in this case, write) about something so important when you're in the middle of it.  The connections are still shimmering with process in flux. 
 
But you should know I've been working on it steadily, session after session, with this outstanding, all-star band that includes Liz Kinnon on piano and arranging, Kirk Brundage on percussion and arranging that (maybe I could write about his books on Afro-Brazilian percussion instead, which I've been working on too....?!), Hussain Jiffrey on bass, Enzo Todesco on drums, Roberto Montero on guitar, and so far Dick Mitchell on reeds.  I'm working with Paul Tavenner of Big City Recording.  There—now you can go google those folks and see how great they are! 
 
But there really will be a free download pretty soon, and it'll be nice.  Oh, here's someone else you can google—Rodgers Grant.  He's a composer who used to play keys with Mongo Santamaria back in the day and wrote Yeh-Yeh, which I as well as other singers have been performing since it's a knockout, timeless—and genre-less—tune.  And he wrote some other, lesser-known but even more beautiful songs—like the one I've written lyrics for and that will be the free download.  There, that's all I'll tell you for now.  I'm happy to tell you more in person!
 
Now, about camping.  Usually when I go to Santa Cruz to play with Playtime I stay in friends' houses, but in the summer I like to camp.  I camp at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, which has two parts—the very old and classic Big Redwoods part in the San Lorenzo River valley, and the part on the highest hill above, which is this fantastic micro-climate and micro-system of ocean floor risen up millions of years ago, quite rare, which is so beautiful and pleasant—clean, fine white sand, twisting orange-red madrone of all sizes and shapes, smallish oaks, brachen fern  that comes up unfurling bright green little shoots everywhere in the spring—it's a gorgeous place.  The camp sites have plenty of space in between—in the one I had this last trip, I could see absolutely no-one else and no-one could see me.  Living outside just feels so good! 
 
To get to the river, it's a mile straight down almost, joining Eagle Creek to follow it down to the San Lorenzo.  There's a white sand beach called Cable Car beach which gets just the right amount of sun most of the day but has dappled shade too.  Lots of rocks—at the bend in the river below the beach there's a rapids over the rocks and you can sit in it if you hang on to the rocks and that's the best place to bathe.  Or you can stroll along the river to the other part of the park, where the Big Trees are and right across the tracks is Roaring Camp which I suppose purists might dislike—an old amusement-ish park with a narrow-gauge railway, etc.—but I love it. Get this:  the oldest big trees in the park (founded in the 1860s to preserve them) are 1400 to 1800 years old!
 
Have I sold you on it yet?  I should do so well when this new CD is done!

 I was there to visit a longtime friend, but Santa Fe is a great music town—jazz, rock, plenty of roots. 
 
I did a radio interview on the NPR station KSFR—for the eclectic show Jazz a la Carta with wonderful DJ & interviewer Ricardo Perez. (An earlier one with him is on the About page—check it out).

And I saw the light there, the sky, felt the air, a bit of the country.  I didn’t have much chance to see the amazing art work which is everywhere (except for a couple wonderful hours in the Georgia O'Keefe museum), but saw a few historical buildings (the chapel at Bishops Lodge, written about in Death Comes to the Archbishop). 
 
If you've never been to Santa Fe, the architecture is amazing.  It's highly regulated to two types so is mostly all the same—low curving brick-orange-red adobe, which is very cool, except that it makes it harder to tell the more authentic areas from the less so.  At altitude of around 7000 ft., it was true fall there, with golden leaves carpeting the walkways and river beds.

Best of all was our trip out to Bandelier (Nat’l Monument).  What a wealth of nature and culture.  I LOVE the ancient pueblo dwellings (I guess Anasazi is not used anymore).  I was able to spend a couple hours on my own there, to weave through and to climb up and up the steep!  ladders to the top cave under the cliff and watch the sun flare out behind the opposite ridge.  And what a beautiful little valley (Frijoles).  They said there are many, many sites there, most of them inaccessible except by trail, which got me thinking about backpacking in there sometime—those old cave dwellings really do it to me, push some deep button. 
I¹ve always basically been a cliff-dweller.

Sunday night it snowed—soundless white.  The air is so high, dry, cool!
Could for sure feel the altitude.

Good to feel another part of the country.


16 Oct 09
Last Monday at the Hotel Angeleno was pretty great.  The chic narrow room curve-wraps around the sky-scraping restaurant—it's like you're leaning right over the glittering lights everywhere below.
Ryan (Cross) is funny, really funny as well as a terrific player, Lorca Hart's sound—fat, deep or smokin'—is as back-easing as his sweet slow drawl (crossgrooves.com), and Peter Smith is one of LA's young lions—brilliant, warm, can play anything and does (petersmithmusic.com). 
 
Sherwood Sledge put on a virtuoso show like I've truly never seen before—from him or anyone else.  I did my thing, and Elmer Hopper (xplatter.com) came with his guitar and his husky-clear, heart-squeezing voice and he played and we sang together and Ooo Baby Baby had patrons dancing a slow bear-hug in the aisles...To top it all off blues ace Todd Johnston played and sang the last song, leaving everyone thirsting for more...
What a feast of pleasure (even the food is terrific), leaving me with a deeper appreciation of this bursting city—get thee over there on a Monday night!
 
09 Sept 09
Photo-blog for this site's start-up
 
For my first entry, I wanted to rif on the images in this new site and write about some of the people near & dear to me who guide me through life’s mazes. You can see the first four pages/photos (Home, About, Music, & Calendar) are by professional photog Mike Quain, a pro unbelievably fantastic at what he does (the best pros in LA are unpretentious, open and giving people), and a great guy (from San Jose, so we bonded immediately). He & his downtown studio have it all.
 
The photo on this (Blog) page is by my longtime dear friend Jude Todd, former faculty colleague and artist & writer extraordinaire, and mother of Sammy the cat. She was very humble and reticent about taking pics of me, but she’s a great photog, and she captured the ship, my ship! on the beach at (my hood) Aptos.
 
The last two (Press Kit and Contact) are from the Scarfplay series, I called it. For a fuller range of the Scarfplay series by ace Barb Gerry, see the video she made of me with Triste, on the Music page, click on the VIDEO button. Barb* took these one of my trips to Santa Cruz, last August, before I knew what to do with this site.  One afternoon before she Mark & I* were to play—she & I went up Bay Street towards the U, that median pathway with bushes & hidden oasis-creek between the hustle of Mission and the world’s most gorgeous University, flung far over meadows and redwood vales climbing from the Westcliff coast into the mountains.
 
The scarf Kathy* gave me for my birthday in 07, it has super (and changeable) colors and you can wear in hot weather, which it was. We also took pics that look like a Midwestern Madonna wearing a mantilla to church (see the Music page Video). Besides a killer singer and my Playtime bandmate (with Mark and Linda), Barb is a superb artist at making a girl look good. And see her latest film! (besides the video she did of me:) CHECK OUT THESE CROCODILES IN COSTA RICA!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMKH7ltwUl4
 
I vetted Barb's shots with some closest homies* and they liked them. Except for Nina, who just did not get the scarf :)
 
Just for fun, here’s some of their responses: about the pic on the Press Kit page called Scarfplay 1 Manj thought this was S & M-y and both she and Kath said you can’t see you. Kath also said it isn’t animated or emotional enough. Barb Ketchum said this was arty but not welcoming. Ibby loved it; Becky liked it too. I of course love a picture where you can’t see me, I’ll take any opportunity to hide and be invisible that the universe offers, and the scarf was good because it gave me something clear to do (business!! So essential!). Judy, my terrific web designer (2WorldsInteractive) put it right in herself. The pic on the contact page was nearly unanimously the hands-down fave.
 
*Glossary of Homies
Barbara Gerry, who took the Scarfplay photos, is a fantastic photographer, singer, and beautician. She and lifelong professional guitarist and songwriter Mark Chetkovich have a killer rock/ pop/ folkrock band, Playtime, that I sing with in Santa Cruz, where they live and I come from. Come hear us!! Also, Mark is the brother of my best friend Kathy, see below. Barb regularly has photo shows in Santa Cruz.
 
Manj is my daughter Manjula Martin, artist, writer, editor, performer, musician—definitely the coolest, hippest, and among the very smartest individuals I’ve ever met, & with the greatest offbeat taste. She lives in San Francisco, in a to-die-for apartment in the Mission.
 
Kathy is Kathy Chetkovich, possibly the most exquisite writer on the planet and the smartest and sweetest and sharpest advisor ever and my best longtime & creative buddy and dear friend—if you want to know more, you know what to do, but FIND her book of short stories and track down her essays, and btw this March her second play ran in New York… I was there! Kathy lives in New York City now and sometimes in Santa Cruz.
 
Ibby is my younger sister Ibby Cline, a singer-songwriter, musician, writer, Buddhist and scientist. She lives in a house at over 8500 feet near the top of Copper Canyon, between Denver and Boulder in CO. My younger sister’s site: http://www.ibbycline.com/index.htm
 
My other sister, Barbara Gaylord, lives in Hunstville Alabama with her husband and grandkids, and she was the one with me wearing the lace mantillas to church every Sunday. (The best part came after, when the veil came off or the hat was pulled down tight, when our Daddy would drive us to Uncle John’s Pancake House with the top down on the caddy.) 
 
Becky Linder is my dear friend who’s an artist and teacher, flashing bright and cool and funny, a wonderful person and mom of Miles, wife of Brian. They live in Culver City. Barbara Ketchum is a wonderful artist, businesswoman, and dream buddy who also lives in Culver City. Nina Bongiovanni is my dear friend whom I got to know when her sister Joanna, one of the reasons I moved to LA, was in the process of taking her leave of our planet. Nina is the creator of the gorgeous silverware line NinaB (Annie Glass has it) and an accomplished cook and businesswoman. She lives in Santa Monica, just a straight cross-town shot from where I live.
 
Thanks for your interest! For more bio-type stuff go to the Memoires tab.