Kingston, the muse: Martin’s new album draws from local inspiration

She continues to be active at her son’s school, George Washington Elementary. She built the school’s website and has helped out with communications. “It directly impacts the kids and for that reason I love it,” she said.

Being a parent, activist and artist is all about balance, she added. “There’s a theme throughout this whole record, which is the struggle between having the ability and opportunity to be really practical and helping organize things and pulling to get back to the intuitive in the music. It’s about both the disappointments and hopefulness. Every tune has a bittersweet element.”

Her music also is therapeutic. “Tunes are prophets to me,” she said. “They’re messages. At some point when I’m listening back, it’s exactly what I need to hear to help me process what happened and get perspective. People who come to my music have the same experience. They probably wouldn’t know the allusions, even though it’s very obvious to me; people point out how my lyrics are somewhat ambiguous. But my interpretation is very specific.”

Her process of composing is intuitive. Words evolve out of the sounds that shape the melody and are keyed to “an expression of feeling I had at a certain time,” she said. “I sit with my guitar and I find a pattern of notes that I like. At some point the melody arrives, and through that process of working, vowels start to develop. Those become words, which are sometimes very peculiar. Sometimes it’s a word I never would have used.”

Besides promoting her new CD, Martin is involved with two other creative projects. One is a song-writing collaboration via e-mail with Ron Sexsmith, “one of my idols, who’s been touted by Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello as one of the innovators,” she said. “It’s very interesting to try to combine my very deep intuitive work with words with Sexsmith’s very practical storytelling.” She’s also writing tunes for Argentine composer Guillermo Klein. “I’ve always wanted to work with him. I’ve known him for two decades and finally got brave enough to approach him in 2007, for a different project doing standards.” Martin plans to travel to Argentina next summer to perform and record the new material with a small orchestra.

She also enjoys performing with Parlato and Stevens. The two younger women — 43-year-old Martin is the oldest in Tillery, by seven years — travel around the world and have been recognized as among the best jazz singers in the world. “When we met I had had success but I was kind of out of the limelight for a while,” said Martin. “Gretchen’s career meanwhile had exploded, and Becca’s was starting to take off. Gretchen and I had been friends since 2007 and we were just hanging out. We became a group in 2010 and play together when we can.”

Martin noted that her own career has taken unexpected twists and turns. “I was really on track to become a pop singer with a million-dollar record deal,” she said of her early days in New York, in the early 1990s. She and partner Jesse Harris “were touring with everybody, Squeeze and Shawn Colvin and The Lilith Fair. It was pretty intense. Then our label went bankrupt.”

In retrospect, Martin said “it was the best thing that could have happened to me,” given that she then “left the band, went out on my own and learned guitar.” Becoming a jazz singer suited her perfectly, she added. “You’re kind of anonymous, which I love.”

“I’ve ridden the wave big time and had my share of hard knocks,” she said. “This is the perfect time for this to be happening.”