Martín Perna
the last of the old and the first of the new
Music has been making me for thirty years. I began my musical journey in New York in the early 1990s, where I founded the groups Antibalas and Ocote Soul Sounds & Adrian Quesada and was a founding member of The Dap Kings and frequent contributor to TV on the Radio.
Since then, my flutes, saxophones, percussion and production are featured on over 100 albums.
I have served as musical director at Carnegie Hall for three all-star tribute concerts: Paul Simon (2014), David Byrne/Talking Heads (2015), Aretha Franklin (2017) and the Music of Billie Holiday (2017) at the Apollo Theater.
Since moving to the Bay Area in 2019, I have birthed a solo flute and woodwind guided psychedelic jazz project MARTEZ and composed/performed the soundtrack to the 2022 PBS American Masters: “Roberta Flack” documentary. in Late 2024 I put together Suns of Mothers, an improv trio with Tommy Guerrero and Nino Moschella.
Lately I have been collaborating with my partner, visual/performance artist Courtney Desiree Morris and other Bay Area-based artists including Toro y Moi, Sulah Jordan, Lateef the Truthspeaker, Tommy Guerrero, Orchestra Gold, Platurn, and Zekarias Musele Thompson’s Togetherness Ensemble.
I am a co-founder of Keys to the City, an Oakland-based library of vintage keyboards and keyboard-activated musical experiences. (more..)