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?". There's interest, without a doubt, and a market. But it won't be easy to get the whole combo abroad, that became clear as well. For the moment at least some solo shows, to entice agents, promoters and fans. Ottmar played a lot he presents at the other concerts as well, one can get an idea easily when following his online diary. Sitting in that cold tent in Munich, the last venue of the show, at least as I was concerned, I couldn't feel differently than being happy ...



I visited the shows in Freiburg on Monday and Munich on Friday. In Freiburg, I would have loved to bring my 87-year-old grandfather who is living nearby but that wasn't possible. The concert took place in a Jazz club, in a cave to be more precise, with vaulted ceilings. No photos taken, sorry for that, but my camera is not really working in obscure light anyway.
Imagine my surprise when I walked through the cave to find a good seat and in came Jon Gagan! Wait a second, wasn't this show supposed to be Ottmar solo? I checked, and it was. Jon took care of the sound this time, he said that Alan Behr had had no time. What a waste, you might think immediately, just get an upright bass out from somewhere and bring him to stage! But that's how it was and in fact it was Ottmar and Jon travelling Germany these 5-6 days, no families, no engineer, and no video-shooting-or-doing-the-lighting-or-best-playing-Flamenco-guitar-as-well guy ...
The show in Freiburg was at least full, if not sold out, and the audience obviously enjoyed the performance. Some where proud that the Jazzhaus was the first German venue for Ottmar after such a long time of being absent. As for the music, maybe as could have been expected, most people knew Ottmar from "Nouveau Flamenco" but not the newer stuff. When he turned into playing "Barcelona Nights", "Santa Fe" or "2 The Night", you could see people nodding their heads. Not as enthusiastic as one hears on the recordings from the US shows, more of a quiet nodding, but still. And I have also watched people being amazed by Ottmar's playing, his skills, his compositions, during tracks they did not know, particulary "This Spring Release 10,000 Butterflies". Plus, from the listeners' reactions, I think that "Up Close: Beginning" has the potential of becoming a live song like "Santa Fe" or else. I also did have the impression that these solo concerts where good advertising for "The Scent of Light", it's Grammy nominated!, but there was no merchandise (for customs reasons). So if you are from Germany looking for the tunes you did not know, go here or here and give it a try!

Freiburg is in one of the regions in Germany where the weather is usually better than elsewhere. It had snown a little bit the day over but not much. The bit had melted away and it was not too cold. At the end of the week, in Munich, the cold was much more intense. And the venue different. Here you can get an idea:




The venue had changed from late May to late November and now the Munich show was scheduled in a place called "Spiegelsalon"/"Mirrorlounge" which is situated in an industrialized part of Munich. It turned out that this mirrorlounge was a tent from the 1920s. Architecture and atmosphere kind of interesting, but you sat packed like sardines, which didn't make it any warmer, though, since they had to turn off the heating during the show, assumingly for noise reasons. I might have been the only one hardly noticing the cold, I was busy following the music ... :) Truth is that even Ottmar, when he came in, blew his hands in this "brrr brrr" way of blowing into your hands.

While in Freiburg, Köln, Hamburg and Mainz Ottmar was able to present his slideshow, it was not possible in Munich, mainly because of the architectural circumstances, as you can see quite good in the photo above: no suitable background or other device, and the columns would have hindered the view of a lot of people anyway.

So in Munich Ottmar had the difficult task to entertain the audience solo indeed, only him sitting there in the front, and the tent getting rather cold after a while. Personally I did not miss the slideshow; it was way more interesting to see him play "up close". Back in 2005, when seeing his shows in New York and Westhampton, I figured that there came sound out of his guitar that couldn't have been played by his ten fingers alone. Now I got a better view and it was really amazing, especially to see Ottmar's right hand move, what melody his thumb plays, and what the other four fingers are doing the very moment ...

But I guess the slideshow would have added a nice element. In Freiburg, some questioners related to pics they had seen (Ottmar playing for the children in Kham). And I will always be amused remembering what Ottmar said about the connections the brain makes, and then he played "The River" and I saw (blue) lines in several pictures in a row ...




You get totally new impressions of certain songs in this solo show version of Ottmar playing live. "Firelight", for example, was my least favourite of "The Scent of Light", if something like this exists anyway when talking about his music. Needless to say that I was totally hooked when I heard the chorus of this song being played live! It's there right now, I can't get it out of my head - despite a Drum Duet from a Chicago 2003 concert is playing on iTunes while I'm writing this ...

Deeply amazing what Ottmar can do with his acoustic guitar. Some weeks ago I had seen Dhafer Youssef playing his oud live in concert and that was impressing as well. But Dhafer uses live looping, the technique Matthew Schoening dedicated his whole new album to. Ottmar doesn't do such a thing. He is simply that skilfull, and in Munich his guitar sounded great, full and warm, although it became so cold inside the tent that people took on their winter jackets during the show! Maybe this appeared to me only because I sat directly under some speakers, but anyway, I don't know if this is a valid description in English but I had the image that Ottmar's Devoe was like a thoroughbred mare that needed to be tamed. And Ottmar did so, letting her escape only 2-3 times if I heard correctly. :P Ha, I have to think of Carlos Santana, how he asked his guitar to "hold still" while he played, but he was on drugs then, and very likely I'm only thinking this because on iTunes now "Ballad 4 Santana" from the Austin 2004 show is on!!

During the soundcheck, by the way, to my great surprise, Ottmar slipped into a song from "Leaning Into The Night". Think it was "Prelude No. 3" but am not sure. He didn't play it again during the show. A pity, indeed. But an endurable one regarding what fine tunes Ottmar usually plays and how he keeps surprising his audiences by including songs like "Bullfighter's Dream" during this year's summer concerts in the US!

Munich was crowded/full/sold out as well. Same phenomenom as in Freiburg what the people's knowledge of Ottmar's music is concerned. Some asked for song titles. You'll find them at the end of this entry.



Ottmar talking in German! :)

During the conversation part, Ottmar right from the first moment on talked in German. That was funny to listen to him talk in your own mother tongue for once! He appeared a bit sceptical about finding the right words during the show in Freiburg but in Munich, it wasn't an issue anymore. People didn't ask many questions, maybe they were no used to, so Ottmar every time quite quickly came to say, "Spiel ich noch'n paar Songs!", and played on ... :)

The two photos of Ottmar were taken by Gudrun. We met briefly before and after the show, in fact she found me!, she had a nice place in the first row and I think she took some clear pictures I could have never taken. A very small Fanmenco gathering in a sense!

To come to end, coming back to the questions from the audience to name track titles. Since this little tour is over, and in case one of the Munich visitors stumbles upon this blog, here is a list of what Ottmar played (and the according album where to find it). The order is more or less the one from Munich - and I'm not claiming that I got it all! :)

Silence (The Scent of light)
Snakecharmer (Hours between Night+Day)
Three Days Without You (The Scent of Light)
Santa Fe (Nouveau Flamenco)
This Spring Release 10,000 Butterflies (One Guitar)
2 The Night (Nouveau Flamenco)
The Longest Night (Winter Rose)
Duende del Amor w/ new Intro (Solo Para Ti)
Looking West Until The Train Disappears (One Guitar)
Samba Pa Ti/Barcelona Nights (Solo Para Ti/Nouveau Flamenco)
Up Close: Beginning (The Scent of Light)
La Luna (La Semana)
Firelight (The Scent of Light)
The River (The Scent of Light)
Night Travelling Raindrops (One Guitar)
Carrousel (La Semana)
Red Desert Sky (One Guitar)