Hello everyone, Kirk here, still hard at work on season eight of strong songs, and in the

interim I have been running interview episodes like the one that you are about to hear.

This one is with someone who will be familiar to some of you.

Jazz pianist Peter Martin is no stranger to the world of music podcasting.

His own music podcast, You'll Hear It, which he co-hosts with fellow pianist Adam Manus,

is a great listen, and I was actually a guest earlier this year talking with them both about Tower of Power.

I ran that episode in this feat a little while back, so some of you

probably heard it. The folks at Open Studio, Peter's online jazz education outfit, reached out

to see if I might want to have Peter on Strong Songs as a guest, and I thought, hey, it's not

every day you get to talk with someone who played on some of your favorite jazz records of the 90s,

or really of all time. Peter is the real deal as jazz players go. He spent the 90s and 2000s working as a side man with artists like Betty Carter, Diane Reeves, Roy Hargrove, and Joshua Redmond. He's also just a killing player. You'll hear a lot of his playing in this episode. He is, man, the guy can play.

He's also, of course, led his own groups. You're hearing a track right now from a recent record of

his called Generation S, which he recorded over the course of a single recording session

at the open studio space in St. Louis.

Peter and I talked about a bunch of interesting stuff, his musical background, what it was

like to come up learning the Suzuki method, how the 90s jazz scene differed from the

scene of today, and some of the many players who influenced him as a young pianist from

Winton Marsalis to Kenny Kirkland and

many more. And I do just want to note we had some issues with Peter's audio file that required

some creative fixes in the edit. Hopefully you won't notice too much of it, but if you hear

any weird levels or audio issues, that is what that's about. It was a great conversation filled with a ton of

great music. I really hope you enjoy it. So without further ado, here is my conversation with

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