Clicking on the above photo will take you to the free track in our ListeningLounge. Only available from today until next Wednesday and only available here.
PS: The free track is no longer available.
Related:
Recording
Birthday
ListeningLounge
My photos from Tibet and Morning Light (Kham, October 2006) from the album The Scent of Light. Over 1,800 images at 6 frames per second.
You might have noticed that over 10,000 images disappeared from my Flickr account. Well, they disappeard from your view, but they are not gone. They can be viewed and even downloaded and printed by my Flickr Friends. How can one become my Flickr Friend you might wonder. More about that later.
I want to respond to questions regarding the two cancelled December concerts, the Benise Cruise and the Star Center in Rio Rancho.
Benise’s people never sent the required deposit and when contacted they said they wanted to lower the offer, because they in turn had accepted a lower offer from the cruise line. We declined the new offer. Sadly it appears they continued to tell fans that we were on the ticket even after our performance was cancelled and some fans are still waiting for their refunds…
The Star Center show was cancelled by the Mayor of Rio Rancho because of problems with the building. My agent was assured that every single ticket holder would be telephoned or emailed and informed of the cancellation. That apparently did not happen and I am finding out that fans arrived at the Star Center on the evening of the performance, in some case after driving for hours or flying in from other states.
Even though “they” messed up I am aware that all of the goodwill we earned in two decades of touring can evaporate like that (((snaps fingers))) – and I am not sure what I can do… I realize that saying it’s not my fault won’t make it better. I can tell you that “my people”, from agent to manager and including myself did everything we could. We scrambled to cancel flights and hotel rooms, and we paid the musicians even though the gig got cancelled. Jon spent many hours writing new horn charts for the XL band and I felt terrible having to tell him the gig wasn’t happening. Maybe we’ll just have to bring the XL band back for a few gigs next year, ’cause damn, the arrangements Jon came up with were GREAT!
In closing let me say this: every once in a while we come up against a promoter who acts incompetently. Every musician has lots of stories about those experiences. It’s just bad luck that we recently encountered two in a row.
Boris reviewed two of my solo performances in Germany last month:
Ottmar Liebert’s Fanmencos @ OLnet: Ottmar live in Germany – Some impressions
And finally Ottmar Liebert brought his music to Germany! That’s how it all started for me: I had found Pandora’s Box way back in the 90s and had written Ottmar an e-mail, honestly without expecting an answer, asking “When do you come to Europe?” – like so many people asked during the shows this one week in November, “Why do you come to Germany that seldom?”.
Regarding the set list he wrote down, I think he is probably correct (((I would not know the order of the songs because I don’t use a set list for solo concerts))), but want to add:
The piece he identified as The Longest Night also contained fragments from Dream (The Hours between Night + Day) and Sapo (One Guitar). What Boris called the new intro to Duende del Amor is a piece I wrote and recorded for The Scent of Light, but did not finish because it became obvious that I had more music than would fit on a CD. Actually, I did record the piece, and even have a title – all that is missing is a solo by Rahim AlHaj. The title is Two Sisters: Hope + Sorrow and I wrote it with the heart-break that is Iraq in mind. Come to think, I will ask Rahim to play on it when he come to Santa Fe next and will add it to the ListeningLounge. I didn’t play Red Desert Sky, because that piece requires a different tuning. I was just improvising an encore, but could have played a few similar lines.
In Freiburg Boris knew the song-titles better than I did and helped me out when somebody asked what I had just played…
I love doing solo-performances. They feel so direct and simple and personal and challenging…
Here is a beautiful photo Boris took in the mirror-tent in Munich. That was the one day I forgot my camera in the hotel room. Would have liked to grab some images there.
GRAMMY.com
The Scent Of Light
Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra
[SSRI]
Two years in a row and the fifth one overall.
Was it Stevo, who called me the Susan Lucci of the guitar? But man, she had 21 nominations and one win and I’m only at five…
