Monte Carlo Nights

02008-05-23 | Interview, Performance, Radio, Touring

Radiomontecarlo.net : Monte Carlo Nights
Last night at the Blue Note I did an interview with Nick, the Nightfly between my sets. We met for the first time in 1994, I believe. He mentioned that next year his program will be twenty years old and I answered that I recorded “Nouveau Flamenco” twenty years ago next year… Time is like climbing a mountain. We take one little breathless step at a time, but at intervals we look back and are amazed at the view back down the valley… Twenty years – almost half of my life. A long time or not time at all… :)

The first set was recorded for broadcast.

I wish I’d speak Italian.

Tuesday Afternoon

02008-04-08 | Interview, Music, Radio

In the afternoon I spent a couple of hours with John Diliberto of Echoes. He played me 12 tracks and recorded my reaction – similar to this show with Michael Brook. Most of the music I had not heard before. Some musicians I identified within a few seconds because of their unique sound, others I could not guess at all. I had John McLaughlin, Paco de Lucia, Keith Jarrett and Santana within moments although he played me pieces I had not heard before. I did not guess William Orbit, Al Di Meola or Jesse Cook. The only piece of music he played that I have at home was something from Brian Eno’s Another Day On Earth. The interview/blindfold test will run sometime in May – see Echoes for details.

Then I went for a walk and had a cubano at Brew Ha Ha.

PS: I just listened to the above-linked radio show with Michael Brook. Wonderful to hear something I would not have guessed – his enjoyment of a Missy Eliot track…

PPS: Link to all of Echoes’ Secret Source shows. In the evening I listened to the show with Mark Isham and ended up writing down a couple of albums I want to hear more of.

Salt Lake City Weekly

02007-11-08 | Interview, News, Ottmar, Performance

Salt Lake City Weekly – Independent Guide To News, Arts & Entertainment
Music | Monk Funk: Guitarist Ottmar Liebert likes you close.

There’s a spaciousness, an intensity to the sound of One Guitar that evokes deserts and mountains. But there’s also at times an almost aching sense of concentration, of focus on a note, on the plucking of a string, the source of which might just as well come from his long-standing commitment to meditation.

And

He wants listeners who view instrumental music as no more than background music, to “dive into it and give it your own translation.”

Some translation is already provided through titles such as “Night Traveling Raindrops,” the track’s chorus a gorgeous re-creation of listening to the rainfall. It was named by a German fan from Bavaria. “This Spring Release 10,000 Butterflies” was a Liebert title. He wrote that song for Genpo’s dharma successor Diane Hamilton. When they met a few months after he finished it, she said she’d been dreaming of butterflies all the previous month.

Read the whole piece here.
Monk Funk. Nice. Other interesting interview titles here.