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Get to Know Guitarist and Vocalist Pedro Martins, A Fresh Face on the Global Jazz Scene

Courtesy of Artist
Pedro Martins

It’s easy to get excited about Pedro Martins, a young multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter from Brazil.

On this edition of My Music on The Checkout, we’ll get to know Martins, who at 26 has toured with Kurt Rosenwinkel and released his own album on the guitarist’s Heartcore label. It was Rosenwinkel who gave Martins the confidence to step out as a vocalist — featuring him in that capacity on https://youtu.be/GNsPrAfQXfQ">a song called “Kama.”

Martins was something of a child prodigy: he remembers hearing and dissecting a Beatles song by age 3. His parents encouraged his practice on many different instruments; by 7, he was making rudimentary multitrack recordings on analog cassette.

By age 16, he had released his first album. It was around that time when his study of Rosenwinkel became an obsession. Martins somehow grabbed an early demo of the guitarist’s album Caipi a full decade before it was released to the public.

Martin is now touring with Rosenwinkel’s Caipi band; riding a wave of critical acclaim for his second album, Vox; and carving out a lane for himself as a singer.

His beautiful and plaintive vocal style also shines on Expensive Magnets, a new collection of homemade videos he created with Genevieve Artadi, of the group Knower.

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For more than 15 years, Simon Rentner has worked as a host, producer, broadcaster, web journalist, and music presenter in New York City. His career gives him the opportunity to cover a wide spectrum of topics including, history, culture, and, most importantly, his true passion of music from faraway places such as Europe, South America, and Africa.