Gabriela Martina Introduces Jazz Yodeling

News, From the Magazine, Gabriela Martina

By j. poet I Oct. 17, 2023

Gabriela Martina and her longstanding band, from left, Vancil Cooper, Martina, Ben Rosenblum, Kyle Miles, Maxim Lubarsky and Jussi Reijonen.
(Photo: Courtesy Gabriela Martina)

Her love of musical discovery and invention shines through on every track of her latest album, Homage To Grämlis, a song cycle that describes her childhood on her family’s farm in Lucerne, Switzerland. “A few years back, I started yodeling again and it moved me so deeply that I started to cry,” Martina said. “My family played music together many Sunday afternoons. My mom played accordion and piano, sang in the church choir and loved Mahalia Jackson. My father sang in a traditional Swiss yodeling group. I had a sister who played piano, a sister who played flute and guitar and a brother who played drums, so something musical was always happening in our house.

“During my teenage years, I thought yodeling wasn’t cool. I listened to rock and pop, then fell in love with jazz. I got active in the music scene, sitting in [with] bands and collaborating on songwriting with other musicians. I didn’t see myself as a professional back then.”

Martina studied music in London for a year, then returned to Lucerne for her jazz education. “I soon realized jazz was much more than the sounds you hear,” she said. “It’s a musical art form with African roots that was created in the United States and from that tree all other styles evolved such as blues, soul, funk and so much more. It’s part of the way you walk and talk and live. I wanted to move to the U.S. and experience that. My family couldn’t afford to pay my tuition at the Berklee College of Music, so I worked hard and saved my money. In 2008, I moved to Boston and started school.”

As soon as she touched down in the States, she started performing and recording. She networked with musicians, played gigs and found session work. After two years, she released two EPs and an album, No White Shoes, that she produced and promoted on her own.

“It would be nice to work with a label, but not many of them work with the musicians,” she said. “So I’ve been doing everything as an indie musician for the past 20 years. I’m booking concerts, doing marketing, designing my website, interacting with social media, directing and producing my videos, writing grant applications, doing fundraising, handling the communication between my musicians and event organizers, booking gigs and arranging the transportation and accommodations.”

Martina was starting work on a new collection when the memories of early yodeling songs began filling her head. “I began thinking about the cycle of winter into summer, the summer storms that bring rain and the lightning that can also be dangerous to crops and the autumn harvest. My parents planted a tree each time a child was born, but as they got older, it became physically and economically impossible to do the work. They had to give up the farm, and when our house was renovated, my tree got cut down. I started writing about that and the rest of the songs flowed out.”

Homage To Grämlis was recorded with her long-standing band of pianist Maxim Lubarsky, bassist Kyle Miles, drummer Vancil Cooper, guitarist Jussi Reijonen and accordion player Ben Rosenblum. Her melodies are rooted in jazz, but the arrangements flow through many styles. “This Country, That Country” incorporates a theme from Swiss composer Hans Aregger and features Martina yodeling and chanting the nonsense syllables of a playful child. “Mother Mary” is a woman-to-woman letter to the Virgin Mother. It combines elements of jazz, liturgical and classical music along with her yodeled improvisations.

“We recorded the album a year before COVID shut everything down,” she says. “I released it on my website and lost a lot of money. I was able to get support from some foundations, but it’s a challenge being an indie artist in this business.”

Despite the difficulty, Martina stays busy. She’s already cut her next album, States, a look at the way the United States represents freedom to the world while failing to look after its own citizens in many ways. “The lyrics use rhythm and texture to create a unique language that may make sense, or not. My mentor Frank Carlberg introduced me to the work of Gertrude Stein, and I wrote some of the words in her style.

“In the meantime, I’m going to Mozambique to meet my friend Angelena Mbulo, a vocalist and music educator. With the support of a grant from Chamber Music America, we are composing musical pieces on the subject of child marriage, recording a demo and planning concerts to raise awareness, and financial support, for Angelina to start an after-school program for impoverished children. After that, I’ll continue with the promotion of States. It can be a difficult path being a musician, but I grew into it. When music gets you, it’s hard to get rid of it. It’s a love/hate relationship. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to do, but there’s no way for me to escape, so here I am.” DB