Biography

Dutch jazz guitar player and singer Martien Oster studied at the Musician's Institute in Los Angeles.

In 1983, he won the award for best Soloist at the Meervaart Jazz Festival.

At the age of 24, he became a guitar teacher at the Conservatory of Hilversum in the Netherlands. He currently teaches at the Conservatory of Amsterdam.

Martien has played throughout Europe with a.o. Chet Baker, Toots Thielemans, Deborah Brown, Monty Alexander and Red Holloway. He toured Switzerland in 1990 with singer/pianist Diana Krall and played at the festival of Montreux.

In 2001 Martien played together for the first time with the legendary Hammond organ player Dr. Lonnie Smith. A live recording of this collaboration has been released.

Current activities

Fall 2007 Lonnie Smith and Martien will join forces once again for a European tour with the Original Grooves (Miguel Martinez on alto saxophone and Gijs Dijkhuizen on drums). Click for tourschedule.

During Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 Martien is also participating in the Impulse jazz series, touring Dutch theaters with 4beat6; the band that revitalizes the music of the Bennsy Goodman sextet. In this group Martien takes the seat of Charlie Christians, the originator of modern jazz guitar.
For dates and places see the website of 4beat6 .