ABOUT

Bio

Award winning vocalist and commissioned composer; Heidi Martin’s latest recording ATTUNEMENT, official release May 26, 2026, Is a non-traditional tribute to Vocalist, Actress, Songwriter, Poet, and Civil Rights Activist: Abbey Lincoln aka: Aminata Moseka.

In 2024, Martin received the Berger-Carter Berger Fellowship from the Rutgers Dana Library Jazz Studies Department to research the Abbey Lincoln Estate. With a focus on the Abbey’s Journals, Heidi composed 8 songs thru aligning with Lincoln’s spirit and philosophy. She reached out to both Marc Cary and Michael Bowie, who both played with Abbey Lincoln for over a decade. Seeing if they could share stories while she was studying Abby's journals. Inspired by their recollections and the depth of research of Abby's personal journals, with her own alignment with Abby's spirit and philosophy, Heidi began composing a poetic tribute. Beyond the traditional tributes to monuments in the music. What you might call channeling. As the poems emerged, she put them to music. With Arts & Humanities Grants from Montgomery County Maryland, She recorded with Marc Cary Piano, Michael Bowie Bass, Eric Kennedy Drums, Ethan Baily-Gould Guitar, Elijah Easton Tenor.

Resulting in a new recording ATTUNEMENT, sharing production with Producer and Bassist innovator Michael Bowie.

In 2023, She premiered a “New Jazz Works” commission by Chamber Music America (2022) entitled “What Love Endures”. The Heidi Martin Ensemble: Janelle Gill keys, Romeir Mendez bass, Justin Faulkner drums, Tim Warfield sax, Josh Evans trumpet, Paul Bollenback guitar, and Paige Brown vocals.

In 2022, She released recording “Gifts & Sacrifices” with Raymond Angry rhodes, George Burton piano, Tarus Mateen bass, Eric Harland drums, Paul Bollenback guitar, Tim Warfield soprano, Josh Evans trumpet, and Paige Brown vocals. The same year; awarded a South Arts Touring Grant to perform Gifts & Sacrifices with the large ensemble in the mid-Atlantic region.

She has performed both nationally and internationally at: Winter JazzFest, DC Jazz Festival, NOMAFest, Black Arts Fest, MadJazz Fest, Pori Jazz Festival (Finland), The Kenzi Sky Bar, Cadet Rouge in (Casablanca, Morocco).

She shared the stage with Dana Murray, Russell Gunn, Raymond Angry, Nicholas Payton (Into the Blue), Tim Warfield, and George Burton (the truth of what I am) , Allyn Johnson, Romeir Mendez, Justin Faulkner, Orrin Evans, Nicholas Payton; appeared on recordings with Russell Gunn (Love Stories), Dana Murray (Negro Manifesto) and Reginald Cyntje (Love Album).

“A singer-songwriter perspective, Heidi Martin applies that folk influence from the 60’s to a whole different genre of music”~ George Burton

“An original voice whose artistry is both authentic and defiant to genre, a provocative lyricist with a deep sense of social consciousness.” ~ Tim Warfield

Four of Martin’s compositions off her first album “HIDE” - were chosen as a soundtrack to REVOLUTION ’67, a documentary about the 1967 Newark rebellion by Emmy-nominated filmmakers Jerome and Marylou Bongiorno.

Reviews:

All About Jazz:

“A breezy stroll through the Civil Rights movement at a level deeper than the mere political. Martin has a vision—oneness with all—and she promotes it with her lyrics. She cuts to the chase with little conversation, more Hemingway than Faulkner. But there's stll a distinct Southern vernacular in her words.” All About Jazz

Wine is a mixture of spirits that stimulate the senses of sight, smell, and taste. The voice is a similar mixture of spirits—a fermentation of styles, shapes, and sounds. From the female perspective, Heidi Martin's voice has a heavy Rickie Lee Jones bottom with a suggestion of Joni Mitchell and Betty Carter and just a hint of Janis Joplin in the finish. From the male perspective, John Hiatt provides the tobacco, Ray Charles the mossy expanse, and Isaac Hayes the vinegar. The bouquet is distinctly Southern, and it deepens with subsequent listenings.

Hide is a biopic of the 21st Century American South: the sticky sensuality and dusty prejudice that endures, never changing. Musically, Hide is the same, but sparingly so, Muscle Shoals and Memphis distilled to the pure essence. The instrumentation and musical arrangements are like the drop of water added to the sacramental chalice, the vehicle for the lyrics to manifest in the aural sea of forgiveness. Hide is a demanding, inventive recording that pays the listener dividends in thoughtful consideration and insight.”

~All About Jazz

“Heidi?”

What a name for a soul singer...

Heidi is very much her own self and I’m responding to that sense of self ... deep enigma reveling in vulnerable openness. Singing some very, very personal experiences and emotions. You can almost see her heart pulsing. There is almost nothing here but voice and the barest cushion of music. In her voice one hears a someone laying it all bare for the world to stare at and pick over, or like Heidi perceptively says, if you’re telling the truth one word is worth a thousand pictures.

What is very, very clear to me is that Heidi has thought deeply about her self-identity and about her identification with black folk. She speaks and sounds from the inside, regardless of what she looks like (and, of course, we are wise enough to know that not only can looks be deceiving, but beyond deception,race itself is no absolute indicator of culture and consciousness).

Heidi’s music is deeply grounded in the black experience. It’s anchored bone deep…

I also really, really like her phrasing and how she uses the sound of her voice to augment the songs. Sometimes it’s not the words but the little moans, hums, croons and occasional hollers that uplift these songs to something you find yourself wanting to hear again. And again.

As a professional writer, I’m attracted to the poetry of her lyrics. The casual way she is intelligent…

…listen to Heidi surveying the contemporary territory with songs like “ISM” and “Your Life.”

—Kalamu ya Salaam, Review of HIDE