The Peter Martin x Strong Songs Interview
You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians
Peter Martin
4.9 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How much do you know about Peter Martin? In this conversation with Kirk Hamilton of the Strong Songs podcast, Peter shares his musical influences and trajectory as a young jazz pianist. He brings us right back to the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s with stories of meeting Wynton Marsalis, and playing with jazz legends like Betty Carter, Roy Hargrove and Joshua Redman.
Plus, he shares his take on jazz education, the marathon runner's mindset and why anyone and everyone can play music.
Check out the Strong Songs podcast: https://strongsongspodcast.com/
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00:00 - Introducing Today's Episode
02:50 - Peter's Strong Songs Interview
06:00 - Peter's Musical Background
08:00 - The Suzuki Method
14:30 - Nurturing Talent
16:30 - How Peter Discovered Jazz
20:30 - Meeting Wynton Marsalis
27:00 - The Midwestern Jazz Scene
33:20 - Juilliard, Roy Hargrove and the Young Lions
35:40 - Moving to New Orleans
38:30 - The Economics of Jazz in the 90s
40:00 - Playing with the Legendary Betty Carter
44:30 - Jazz Musicianship Then and Now
47:15 - Roy Hargrove and the Summer of '94
52:15 - Joining Joshua Redman
57:45 - Rethinking Jazz Education
1:02:15 - The Marathon Runner's Mindset
1:07:20 - Kenny Kirkland: Awe & Inspiration
1:15:00 - Roy Hargrove, The RH Factor and Hard Groove
1:20:00 - My Funny Valentine - Miles Davis
1:25:00 - How to Find the Recommendations in this Episode
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What's up, everybody? Peter Martin here. Welcome to the You'll hear at podcast. We have a very special |
| 0:05.4 | deluxe exclusive audio-only version this week. I had the honor and privilege of being a guest on Kirk Hamilton's |
| 0:13.7 | wonderful strong songs podcast a couple weeks back. And he was generous enough to share the episode with us. |
| 0:20.3 | We thought you guys might get a kick out of it. If you hadn't heard Kirk's wonderful podcast, you should go check that out. Strong songs, we'll have a link to that. But this is the episode in its entirety. We're talking 90s jazz, 2000s jazz. He took me back to some really fun record dates and performances I did back in the day all the way up till today. |
| 0:38.3 | We just nerded out as we do. I hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:47.0 | Hello everyone. Kirk here. Still hard at work on season eight of strong songs. And in the |
| 0:52.8 | interim, I have been running interview episodes |
| 0:54.8 | like the one that you are about to hear. This one is with someone who will be familiar to some |
| 1:00.2 | of you. Jazz pianist Peter Martin is no stranger to the world of music podcasting. His own |
| 1:06.4 | music podcast, You'll Hear It, which he co-hosts with fellow pianist Adam Manus, is a great listen, |
| 1:12.1 | and I was actually a guest earlier this year talking with them both about Tower of Power. |
| 1:17.5 | I ran that episode in this feat a little while back, so some of you probably heard it. |
| 1:22.1 | The folks at Open Studio, Peter's online jazz education outfit, reached out to see if I might |
| 1:26.9 | want to have Peter on strong |
| 1:28.2 | songs as a guest, and I thought, hey, it's not every day you get to talk with someone who played on |
| 1:32.4 | some of your favorite jazz records of the 90s, or really of all time. Peter is the real deal |
| 1:38.6 | 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. |
| 1:47.8 | He's also just a killing player. |
| 1:49.7 | You'll hear a lot of his playing in this episode. |
| 1:51.5 | He's, man, the guy can play. |
| 1:53.6 | He's also, of course, led his own groups. |
| 1:55.3 | 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. |
... |
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