Vicci Martinez has traded the promise of fame for something better. Don’t worry, Tacoma. She’s still making music, and it’s still breathtaking. But living through the past several years — which included the loss of her father to cancer and a split with both the recording industry and a beloved partner — has pushed Martinez to re-evaluate her relationship with music, her self, her life and her career as an artist.



It’s the kind of struggle that makes or breaks people.



Martinez made it, and it shows. 



“When I started writing at 13, I wrote about whatever happened in my life, or in other people’s lives,” she says. “Then my dad passed away. Before he died, he said, ‘At least you’ll have song material.’ But after mourning, life went on and I made a big shift. I miss him, and I love him, but I’m so happy to be alive.”



The past few years of her life have made being happy kind of difficult, she adds. While mourning the death of her father, she made the conscious choice to get moving again, only to run into trouble working with her adopted manager, powerhouse Bill Leopold, who handles names such as Melissa Etheridge and Maroon 5. As the relationship evolved, Martinez began to realize that the music she wanted to make didn’t fit into pop-culture formulae. Leopold wanted songs that the masses could digest properly, but Martinez wasn’t making them — at least not as far as industry moguls defined them.

“He kept telling me that they weren’t ‘hits’,” she says. “We were making these songs, and I liked them. The band liked them. I eventually decided I needed to stay true to my self. I kind of said that we might as well not be working with each other. So I took a leap of faith and made it (her new album) on my own. Now I’m free.”



The conscious choice to become free might explain Martinez’s frequent encounters with bald eagles, including the mass that appeared overhead the day her father died.

If you pick up a copy of her new CD, From the Outside In — perhaps at Martinez’s CD release party at Jazzbones, Friday, March 6 — you’ll hear that freedom, girded by a sort of profound, sober honesty. The 12-track opus is packed with the quiet power of someone who has finally gone through enough to figure out who they are, and embrace it. Whether she intended it or not, everything about this album speaks to transformation and rebirth — the lyrics, the tone, the variety of melody and rhythm, even the order of the songs. The album progresses from some fairly typical Martinez jams — sultry, alive, bluesy, awesome — to a set of four, sparse acoustic numbers that are simply stunning.



The album launches with “Find My Way Home,” which begins, “Every day turns into a maze, I’m just trying to stay in the pace.” It starts on a stuttering wah guitar riff, a dirty organ and piano — slightly awkward and determined, like someone stumbling out of a dark room into the sunlight. From there, the song builds momentum, evolving into a full-on jam — from the hesitant “Every day turns into a maze,” into “I’m going to find my way home,” repeated with increasing conviction as the song peaks.



It’s clear Martinez has already found her way home. The next 11 songs are simply a map of the journey.



The album ends with the six-minute-plus “Rain,” which tells listeners, “Let go of your self. We spent so much time trying, when everything already is. And remember yourself, and then you’ll begin flying like a feather on the wind.”



The song is a tribute to her father, who Martinez says was always her biggest fan.

“I wrote that song for my Dad, played it for him in the hospital, and I never played it again. I never wrote down the lyrics,” she says.



The song was reborn and recorded later as a healing exercise, one that Martinez says she wants to share with her listeners.



“This is something that represents me well as a human being. It’s not just a product,” she says of her latest work. “Everything that I do after this, I want to put that much thought and time into it. I am so lucky to have this talent, and right now, people need to hear certain messages. Yeah, the economy is crashing. But let’s remember everything we do have. It’s a universal connection that I think we can all feel. I feel euphoric when I think about it.”



Then a pause.



“Right now there are six bald eagles flying overhead.”



[Jazzbones, Vicci Martinez CD Release Party with Olivia De La Cruz, Friday, March 6, 9 p.m., $10-$12, 2803 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.396.9169]