Alex Hamburger & José Luiz Martins

Catalog of Dreams
Release Date: August 14, 2026
Label: Challenge Records

A meeting of two brilliant souls is a rare beauty to behold; for such a meeting to last, mature, and refine itself over the course of years is a breathtaking spectacle that is awe-inspiring and impossible to forget. Flutist/vocalist Alex Hamburger and pianist José Luiz Martins are one such example of shooting stars, who, instead of passing by, remained in orbit with one another and led each other to burn inextinguishably brighter. Now, after over six years of nonstop collaboration, shared influences, and mutual sharpening of each other's scintillating prowess, the partners present Catalog of Dreams, their debut album as a duo. Featuring flute, vocals, piano, and keyboards, Catalog of Dreams is a curation of eight pieces - six rearrangements and two original compositions - that explores the breadths of Brazilian music , Jazz, the Great American Songbook, and everything in between.

Hamburger and Martins are both well-established and highly lauded artists in their own rights. Hamburger's most recent albums (And She Spoke, and What If?) were both critically received, while Martins is the 2025 winner of the DC JazzPrix, with his most recent album, Odyssey Mixtape, earning acclaim. The powerhouse musical couple first met in 2018 in the unlikely location of Basel, Switzerland, and coincided while on completely disparate paths. Hamburger, who was a DC native and then New York resident, was taking time abroad. Martins was completing his master's degree in Basel after having left his hometown of São Paulo, Brazil. After they first played together, the two musicians found kindred spirits and like minds, and discovered they had a strikingly similar host of influences and visions of music to be created, culminating in an early collaborative EP, Vapor Trails. Now, the duo have performed consistently and inseparably for over six years and have refined their unified concept as they have performed across Switzerland, broader Europe, DC, New York, and the Americas. Their sound came to a head in 2023 during a three-week residence in Switzerland following a European tour, in which they found an uninterrupted focus and refined the vision for what would become Catalog of Dreams.

The album's title is largely self-defining, describing a unique selection of sounds that have influenced Hamburger and Martins and to which the two have emotional connection. The collection of eight works is, in many ways, akin to a museum exhibition: expertly curated, with samples of brilliance from different directions, all underpinned by a masterful concept and vision. Each piece on Catalog of Dreams showcases a different avenue of the duo and a different direction in which their shared beauty is created. From reimagined arrangements to original compositions, these songs are a part of the story and “catalog” of the duo's lives creating, performing, writing, improvising and listening together. 

The duet's sonic identity remains set apart contemporarily, partially due to their timbres, and partially due to their musical personalities. The music is open and empathetic, yet heavily groove driven; intimate, yet full and dynamic; and true to the traditions that are being cited while uniquely blending styles and ethos. The arranging process was at times completely pre-composed, while at other times was thought up impromptu in the studio, and many times was a game of passing arranging ideas back and forth between the pair until it became its own entity. 

The influence of Brazilian music on Catalog of Dreams can neither be ignored nor downplayed, and undergirds nearly every piece in some way. The tradition and style of this genre is seen most evidently, however, on three tracks in particular: Gilberto Gil's “Ladeira da Preguiça,” Airto Moreira's addictively grooving “Tombo in 7/4,” and modern Brazilian artist Luisa Lacerda's “Poente,” a familial celebration by Lacerda featuring lyrics taken from a poem penned by her father. 

Stepping further into the American Jazz tradition, Catalog of Dreams features the iconic “Dance Cadaverous” by the late Wayne Shorter. Shorter's music has stood as a unified bond for the two musicians since their first meeting and this track provides an ode both to the masterful use of space and harmony by Shorter and to the duo's solidarity in their catalog of influences. Standing in unique contrast to the rest of the album is “Captain Stupido,” a song originally recorded by Thundercat. “When we were in the mountains in Switzerland doing our residency, we were obsessed with this Thundercat song,” the duo says. “It reminded us that among all the heaviness of the world and therefore the art we create about the world we live in, sometimes you need something fun and silly, and there’s an importance and a depth to that.” With an utterly different instrumentation to the original Thundercat recording, Hamburger and Martins took this as an opportunity to build an entirely new landscape with the material while still remaining true to its essence. 

The song “Catalog” stands as a kind of amalgam of all of the above. One of the two original compositions penned by Hamburger with the influence of Martins, the composition weaves the Brazilian influences subtly and artfully back into Hamburger's roots of much of the American lyrical tradition, from Jazz and Black American Music to the Great American Songbook and Folk music. Through these vehicles, Hamburger carefully, tenderly, and with expert nuance weaves tapestries of the human experience through her compositions.

Through the eight songs comprising Catalog of Dreams, Hamburger and Martins aptly showcase their roots, their desires, and their direction, through lyrics and instruments, through soundscapes and grooves. Bold at its core and powerful at its result, Catalog of Dreams draws listeners to join the duo and step with them into their dreams, past and future.