Barcelona Nights – Compilation

I received an email from a person who had bought “Barcelona Nights: The Best of Ottmar Liebert Volume One” and felt bad after reading my note regarding that album.

I am happy that people like my music and I am glad you like this album – I noticed that it is in the top ten of the Billboard New Age chart. My problem lies only with the record company. I think they are greedy for releasing an album that contains nothing new, not a new song, not a different mix……
I am just wondering how many “Best of…” packages they think they can create from 2 CDs worth of material.

Acting as One

Thousands of years ago people were clapping their hands, stomping their feet or hitting sticks together to tune themselves as a group, to bring their breath, heartbeat and mood together. To prepare for a hunt, to ready themselves for a battle or war, or to do a holy deed….anything that involved a group of people acting as one.

Soldiers and marching music still go hand in hand, powerful rhythmic music is played during basketball or football games, and every protest or rally is accompanied by rhythmic shouting or singing.

In some form a modern concert should do the same – bring people together and TUNE them. I feel that when that magic happens during a concert it transforms the audience as well as the musicians and it charges the air. I hope we can make that happen this Summer.

Upright Bass

March 31st at the Nugget was the last time performing with upright bass, the last time playing with this great quintet + the last time we performed some of these songs – at least for a while. I thought Michael Chavez was great on Bongos and the energy between him and Mark on Cajon was amazing.

I am still working in the studio. My engineer and I are removing old analog wires laid in 1994, and replace them with new analog wire and new digital cable and hooking everything up to the patchbays. Patchbays used to mystify me. They are the true heart of any studio, where all of the veins and arteries come together. Here you patch the microphone into a particular pre-amp and from there to the analog to digital converters…..
What a month March was. In nor particular order: The Grammy’s were boring once again, Afghanistan destroyed it’s history, and our own government seems to try to ignore Mad Cow disease instead of learning from the European experience…..