In 2016 he toured Europe with legend Larry Coryell who described Martien’s playing as intelligent and soulful.

In 2019 hammond organ player Mike le Donne and Vincent Herring joined Martien for a new edition of ‘Original Grooves’ playing the major clubs in Germany and Holland.

Martien’s style of playing is clearly rooted in the Jazz tradition but at the same time he is always looking for adventure!

István Gyárfás – guitar
‘Excellent guitarist, excellent style, excellent sense of humor, excellent person. All this to the glory of God. This is Gyafi. This is why we all love him so much.’

Zoltán Oláh – double bass
Zoli is a very talented bass player with whom Gyafi has an almost symbiotic relationship. The two can read each others mind and that provides me with a warm bath to step into musically speaking. Zoli has a classic sound and ‘solid time’, two characteristics you really need without a drummer.

The post When Marty Met Gyafi & Zoli [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Louisa Amend is a vocalist and educator based out of Denver, Colorado. She graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2016 with a Bachelors of Music Education. Throughout her association with UNC, she was a member of numerous premier vocal ensembles (one earning a few DownBeat Student Music Awards) and several opera productions produced by the university and Opera Classica Europa in Germany.

After teaching in public schools, Louisa transitioned into working as a freelance musician and founded her own teaching studio. Louisa sings locally, both in a jazz and classical setting. She recently completed a dedication to the great vocalist Carmen McRae at Nocturne Jazz & Supper Club with McRae’s former piano player, Eric Gunnison. In addition to performing as a soloist, Louisa Amend is the lead soprano of the Denver-based vocal jazz ensemble, Sharp 5. Louisa is also the music director at a local church, where she sings weekly and directs a choir.

Louisa Amend is a dedicated instructor of voice and piano at her private studio and Graland Country Day School. Over the years, Louisa has worked with Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts (CCJA) as a teacher of their SheBop Young Women in Jazz Workshop and KinderBop programs. Also, she has worked as a clinician for several middle school and high school vocal jazz ensembles and with the Denver Women’s Chorus.

Louisa Amend Quartet
Louisa Amend, Vocals
Tom Amend, Piano
Gonzalo Teppa, Bass
Braxton Kahn, Drums

The post Live at The Muse Performance Space [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Founding members, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell (along with former band mate Dan Peek) met in high school in London in the late 1960s and quickly harmonized their way to the top of the charts on the strength of their signature song A Horse With No Name.

America became a global household name and paved the way with an impressive string of hits following the success of their first #1 single. Fifty plus years later, these friends are still making music together, touring the world and thrilling audiences with their timeless sound.

From their formative years, America has been a band capable of transcending borders with its uplifting music and positive message. Embracing a rainbow of divergent cultures, America’s audiences continue to grow, comprising a loyal legion of first, second and third generation fans.

America
Gerry Beckley – Vocals, Keyboards, Guitars, Bass & Harmonica
Dewey Bunnell – Vocals, Guitars & Percussion
Dan Peek – Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards & Harmonica

The post America’s Greatest Hits In Concert [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Patricio Baeza Barrera was born in Chile. He came to Hungary with his family in 1975, when he was twelve years old, and has lived here ever since. Although music, by his own admission, comes from his being and his soul, at first he only played music as a hobby. He played in various university clubs.

The decision to choose music as a career was made in 1988, after his first visit to Chile in a long time. It was then that he realized that music and music-making together were an indispensable source of joy for people, and that serving them was the most beautiful vocation.

During his stay in Chile, he came into contact with many renowned musicians. His musical tastes were most influenced by the Chilean folk musician Osvaldo Alvear. It was from him that he learned most about Chilean and Latin American folk music, which has been one of the main inspirations for his compositions ever since.

Patricio Baeza Barrera – Guitar, Vocals & Harmonica

The post Retro Latin Songs [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Audiophile Masters X, our first edition of Audiophile Masters Covers Collection was so well-received, we just had to make another one. We are excited to announce Audiophile Masters Volume XI Covers Collection 2. With songs you know and love performed by some of our favorite musicians we’ve had the pleasure of recording on Octave, this Covers Collection is one that you will find yourself pulling off the shelf over and over. Recorded in Stereo Pure DSD 256 by Paul McGowan.

On Audiophile Masters, Volume XI: Covers Collection 2, the musical flavors range from jazz and swing to Sixties and Seventies songwriting. Like the first volume in the series, the sound quality is warm, intimate, and spacious, thanks to Octave Records’ Pure DSD 256 recording process and the Gefell M90 and Neumann U67 microphones used in the studio, and the use of mostly acoustic instruments.

Audiophile Masters, Volume XI: Covers Collection 2 was recorded using Octave’s Pyramix-based Pure DSD 256 system from Merging Technologies. It was recorded, mixed, and produced by Paul McGowan and Jessica Carson, with Terri McGowan assisting. The album was mastered by Gus Skinas.

Audiophile Masters Volume XI picks up where we left off with Volume X and starts with two great jazz standards performed by Alicia Straka: Cheek to Cheek and It Don’t Mean a Thing. Katie Mintle’s vocals soar on Paul McCartney’s Blackbird, Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice and Joni Mitchell’s Case of You.

Jeremy Mohney’s quintet throws in some swing with a great lineup of classics, All of Me, Sweet Georgia Brown, There Will Never Be Another You and I’ll See You in My Dreams and Rebecca Folsom makes her Octave debut with Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock. Kick back, relax and enjoy familiar songs with a fresh twist.

Alicia Straka (Tracks 1,2)
Jeremy Mohney Quintet (Tracks 3,4,5,6)
Rebecca Folsom (Track 7)
Katie Mintel (Tracks 8,9,10)

The post Audiophile Masters Volume XI [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

In many ways, Harawi: A Chant of Love and Death featuring Mezzo-Soptano Anna Molnár and pianist László Borbély on a Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano, Hamburg occupies a special place in the oeuvre of Olivier Messiaen. On the one hand, it places extreme demands on the two performers, often not in a purely technical sense, but even more in a spiritual, psychological sense. At the same time, to highlight the work’s humanly testing difficulty is to miss the point.

The other aspect of the piece’s uniqueness is the composer’s style, which is a mixture of surrealism and sacredness, and which makes his musical language always unique and instantly recognizable. And although Messiaen always represents a kind of transcendence, his compositional thinking is, in contrast, finitely organized. The aforementioned surreal flavor also stems from the seemingly irreconcilable nature of this totally organized ‘chaos’ and the sound of sacral rapture. (The composer intends the sixth – Répétition planétaire – movement to give a vision of the chaos of the universe.)

The Harawi (‘yarawi’, a characteristic genre of Peruvian folk poetry, originally related to tragedy) was, not surprisingly, written by Messiaen himself. In addition to the above, Messiaen, who boasted literary ancestry, was obviously keen to create a kind of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ (synthesis of the arts) – in which he was ‘responsible’ for every detail of his work, including not only the music but also the text, which is written in French, but also makes extensive use of Kechuan idioms, which are included for their particular sound.

These lyrics can therefore hardly be called song lyrics in the traditional sense, but rather metaphorical dream descriptions, or ‘celestial suggestions’ if you like, whose meaning lies precisely in their artistic ambiguity. These magical texts project the often ‘too noisy loneliness’ of the human psyche. They express in a symbolic-surrealistic voice all that cannot be expressed in words. In this respect, one of the most direct sources of inspiration for the work was the oil painting ‘Seeing is Believing (L’Ile Invisible)’ by the English surrealist painter Sir Roland Penrose.

Anna Molnár, Mezzo-Soprano
László Borbély, Pianist 

The post Harawi (Chant d’amour et de mort) [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Renowned Spanish guitarist Ricardo Gallén has embarked on a fascinating musical journey with Preludes and Dances from Brazil. His album is dedicated to the works of the legendary composer Heitor Villa-Lobos and to the Grammy-Award winner Sérgio Assad. Both Brazilian, this recording represents a homage and a celebration to the country’s folklore and rich cultural heritage. The album is Exclusively Available in the recorded format and bit rate of Stereo and 5 Channel Surround Sound Pure DSD 256 at NativeDSD!

Villa-lobos’ iconic Préludes and the Suite populaire brésilienne are preceded by the first recording of Assad’s captivating Colloquial Preludes, composed for Ricardo Gallén.

Recorded in the gorgeous acoustics of the 13th Century Convent of San Francisco, in Ávila, Spain, Gallén’s performance is a testament to his exceptional talent and profound musicality and to his love for this music.

Ricardo Gallén, Guitar

The post Preludes and Dances from Brazil [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

The Audiophile Masters series has been one of our most loved projects at Octave Records. To celebrate Audiophile Masters Volume X, the 10th album in this series, we’ve recorded a special edition Covers Collection.

Well-known covers are something that have been requested many times by Octave fans, and we’ve had an excellent time creating this album for you! With some of our favorite voices and instrumentalists, we bring you the first in our new series of special edition Audiophile Masters albums. Recorded by Paul McGowan in Stereo Pure DSD 256.

This reference-style album takes us on a journey of classic covers done by modern artists. Kyle Donovan‘s voice soars on Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynard, blends beautifully with the vocals of Kate Farmer on Van Morrison’s Crazy Love and Can’t Help Falling in Love and gives us a simple yet elegant performance on John Lennon’s Imagine with Pamela Machala on piano accompaniment.

Tim Ostdiek and Jenny Balagna create beautiful harmonies on well-loved classics, Angel From Montgomery, Make You Feel My Love, Up Above My Head, and Cecilia. One of favorite Octave’s artists, Alicia Straka, closes out the album with her quartet on Let’s Fall In Love and Beyond The Sea.

Kyle Donovan (Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4)
Pamela Machala (Track 2)
Kate Farmer (Tracks 3, 4)
Tim Ostdiek (Tracks 5, 6, 7, 8)
Jenny Balagna (Tracks 5, 6, 7, 8)
Alicia Straka (Tracks 9, 10)

The post Audiophile Masters Volume X [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Audiophile Masters Volume IX is a Pure DSD 64 Stereo recording from Octave Records. It includes 10 tracks recorded in the familiar environs of Animal Lane and Octave Studios in high-resolution Pure DSD 64 Stereo audio, to capture the intimacy and impact of the performances with stunning fidelity.

The selections were recorded and produced by Steven Vidaic and Paul McGowan, and mixed by Paul and Jessica Carson, who also served as executive producers. Gus Skinas did the mastering.

Paul McGowan noted, “For Audiophile Masters Volume IX, we focused on acoustic music to showcase the ability of today’s best recording technology to convey every nuance of unamplified instruments and the purity of the vocalists. The clarity and presence of these recordings make you feel like the performers are right at home with you.”

This reference album starts off beautiful and familiar with Alexios Anest’s version of The Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps and is bookended with his rendition of Francisco Tárrega’s Capricho Árabe.

The light and airy vocals of Kyle Donovan comfortably move us forward with his original composition Jupiter. Octave fan favorite, Seth Lewis Quintet, gives us two great Jazz tracks Cagey and Sweet Leaf. These tracks include Octave artists Gabriel Mervine and Tom Amend.

Deal Me In gives us a familiar sound from another Octave favorite, Bonnie & Taylor Sims of Everybody Loves an Outlaw. Michael Wooten & Billy Hoke give us an audiophile treat with their drum duo The Big Groove. This is an audiophile reference album that belongs in every good music collection.

Alexios Anest (Tracks 1, 10)
Kyle Donovan (Track 2)
Monica Marie LaBonte (Track 3)
Seth Lewis Quintet (Tracks 4, 7)
Tyler Thompson (Track 5)
Bonnie & Taylor Sims (Track 6)
Michael Wooten & Billy Hoke (Track 8)
Joe D’Esposito (Track 9)

The post Audiophile Masters Volume IX [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

It feels like we just started Eudora Records, but this journey began 10 years ago, in 2014, with Ricardo Gallén and Josep Colom’s first albums. This has been one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences, and we want to thank you all and all the artists we’ve been so lucky to work with. For many years to come!
– Gonzalo Noqué, Eudora Records

Judith Jáuregui (Track 1)
Kaspar Zehnder, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León (Track 1)
Andoni Mercero, Violin (Track 2)
Alfonso Sebastián, Harpsichord (Track 2)
Fernando Arias, Cellist (Track 3)
Noelia Rodiles, Pianist (Track 3)
Infermi d’Amore (Track 4)
Ricardo Gallén, Guitarist (Track 5)
Josep Colom, Pianist (Track 6)
Ensemble Bayona (Track 7)
María José Perez (Track 7)
Susana Gomez Vazquez, Pianist (Track 8)
Yugen Trio (Track 9)
Petrit Ceku (Track 10)
André Cebrian (Track 11)
Pedro Mateo Gonzalez (Track 11)
Javier Laso, Pianist (Track 12)

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