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The music will soon be uploaded for DEMONSTRATION ONLY, PENDING MASTERING.
For information, please email rick@rickmartinjazzre.com. Thank you for visiting.
TO BE UPDATED 2026 Rick Martin All Rights Reserved
RICK MARTIN?
A contemporary jazz composer, producer, and guitarist, Rick Martin has been navigating the music-biz roller coaster professionally in one role or another for many years. As a front man-lead vocalist-guitarist with several bands, he performed Soul, Rock, Funk, Latin, Pop, and Jazz. You could say he had plentiful of genres on his plate. Rick began the first part of his pro career as a teenager, as he puts it, “In a retro spin in Jersey joints.” He mostly gigged in New York and Jersey, but ultimately toured all over the U.S. and Canada.
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“We were a jamming kick-ass band.”
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More of the RM story
➡ ➡ Note: Jazzre is pronounced Jazzra as in Genre
Melodious Musicality
Rick Martin’s diverse musical experience contributes to the different approaches to his contemporary jazzre repertoire. From composing and producing to recording, each process reveals his multi-genre background. As an avid student of prominent jazz artists, he values a common key to their success: a catalog of songs with Melodious Musicality, instrumentals that lead somewhere, get there, and build to robust peaks. Rick will focus on that basic fundamental to begin his development route.
Moving on to the production, he proceeds with youthful energy and enthusiasm for the process. Utilizing rhythm-guitar skills throughout his career, he demonstrates his knowledge and love of chords in his songs. Surrounded by various percussion-driven rhythms, parts in his jazzre brand could be labeled Soul/Rock, Funky/Latin, Smooth/ Pop or any other combination determined by the listener. “The listener always rules,” Rick welcomes. Thus, creatively true to all his genres, his music has a bit of this, and a bit of that.
PLEASE NOTE: AT THIS TIME, THE MUSIC AWAITS MASTERING, WHICH IS BEST FOR LISTENING ON ANY DEVICE.
Otherwise, you could experience audio problems with these DEMO mixes.
ALBUM MENU
For visitors who like sampling music prior to listening to the full version,
each song on the album has samples that are less-than-a-minute long .
PART 1: Bands & TV Appearances
Rick played with various bands in countless venues from East to West, South to North, including concert arenas, beach resorts, colleges, hotels, casinos, Playboy Clubs and many other assorted night clubs. His list of bands includes two versions of Rick Martin and the Showmen.
The first Showmen led Rick and bandmate Tom Pergola on a gig guitaring and vocalizng behind Charo, the “Cuchi-Cuchi Girl.”
They performed on the Johnny Carson show, Ed Sullivan Show, Manhattan’s Latin Quarter, Paramount Theater, and most NY State Catskill resorts.
After experiencing what celebrity life looks like, Rick segued genre as front-man, lead-vocalist, and rhythm guitarist with Manhattan’s Soul/Funk band, the New York City All-Stars. Rick recalls, “It was like one big star-studded jam session. We were a jamming kick-ass band: Tony Mance on lead guitar, from whom I learned the meaning of ‘funky’, Calvin Dukes on the B-3, an incredible soul-chopping keyboardist, and Lonnie Youngblood, a well-known fab Jazz Saxman, writer and studio musician who recorded and worked with Jimi Hendrix.” Rick pauses. “Oh yeah, then there was me. They needed a singer with soul, someone who knew the words to “I Feel Good” and “Midnight Hour.” He laughs, then conntinues to reminisce about his most influential musicianship experience.
PART 2: Records
Carrying the funk/soulful boost to his repertoire, Rick segued to the Rock/Soul mainstream and formed the second version of the Showmen.
After gigging in the Times Square area of NYC and several venues down the East Coast, two Showmen members launched the Atco-Atlantic Records rock group, Vanilla Fudge (“You Keep Me Hanging On”).
How I missed an opportunity of a lifetime, and it has little to do with the above.
PART 2: Records (cont.)
Coincidently, Rick later signed with the same Atco-Atlantic label with the pop group, Society’s Children (“Live For Today, Count The Ways, Tribute to the Four Seasons, White Christmas.”)
SEGUE TO PART 3: Publishing and Producing
In the next part of his career, Rick Martin devoted his time to songwriting and publishing songs with April-Blackwood, Hal Webman (Muzak), Belwin-Mills and others. At Belwin-Mills, he collaborated with famed #1 hit-maker songwriter and producer, Ralph Murphy (a Hall of Fame inductee and ASCAP VP) on a Decca Records release of Rick’s production and song, “Phoney People.”
Guided by his passion to continue creating and producing, he collaborated with countless musicians, songwriters, singers, and managers, until… as he puts it, “Studio costs was exhausting my wallet.”___
SEGUE TO PART 4: Personal Management
For the fourth part of his career, Rick founded a Personal Management firm. Rick Martin Productions was known for developing talent and managing several bands: R&B/Soul (Jon Wite Group, Tequila, Madison, Odyssey). rock groups (Top-Flite, Flash, La Feme (all-female), Pop (Colors, Daybreak), to name a few. Along the way, he added writing, producing and managing show bands, including The All-American Revue, Foxy (all-female), Babe (all-female), Edie & Ruth Ayers and the Celebration band, American Dream Machine featuring the Salisbury Twins, and more. __
Subsequently, he was elected to the office of Secretary of the prestigious National Conference of Personal Managers.
He certainly excelled as a personal manager of singers and musicians, most notably in jazz, the electrifying guitarist Julio Fernandez, who later became a long-standing member of the incredible fusion jazz band, Spyro Gyra.__
SEGUE TO PART 5: Today and jazzre
The short of the Rick Martin story fades into a new journey, the fifth part of his music career. All during his years on the aforementioned roller coaster, Rick’s media devices at home and on the road were always tuned into Jazz, especially with the progression to Smooth Jazz. “It’s the music of several genres,” he emphasizes. “Even if I’m working on my productions, my day begins and ends listening to Benson, Powell, Butler, Norman & Paul Brown, White, Rit, Standring, Oliver, Golub, Carlton, Klugh, Obiedo, Antoine, and of course, Spyro Gyra with Julio Fernandez.” Wanting to continue honoring more Jazz guitarists in the arena, he clearly demonstrates his enthusiastic appreciation for their talents. They all represent a slice of his influential guitarists list, inspiring him to share his genre jazzre.
RM STORY SLIDESHOW
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TO BE UPDATED 2026 Rick Martin All Rights Reserved