Customer Reviews

Rumba Collection: 1992-1997

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Listening to Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra you are aware that he has more than musical ability. He has a broad understanding of the world and the genius to pick up the feel of a place and culture and create unbelievable music that takes us there and beyond with such depth. He was born in Cologne,Germany. His father is Chinese and German, his mother Hungarian. He traveled widely, and is known and loved throughout the world. With platinum records in other nations and the USA, we're fortunate he decided to make Santa Fe his home. This album is a wonderful compilation of music from other albums, with two previously unreleased, "Tremula" and an unbelievably agile and delightful rendition of his "Barcelona Nights" a speed merengue. I just keep buying more copies for family and friends.

Don't get me wrong. Ottmar continues to do what he does best--play great flamenco-influenced music, lending his own personal take and a few other influences to the great tradition of the fast and furious guitar, but for some reason this album just doesn't do it for me. Too much studio fiddling, too little wild improvisation. Go for his live album Viva! long before you move on to this new release.

Two Christmases ago, I was very much taken with Ottmar Liebert's wonderful holiday album CHRISTMAS AND SANTA FE, reviewed it quite positively for Amazon.com and gave it four stars. I wish I felt the same way about RUMBA COLLECTION which, to me, is, after two listenings, not even a CD which I wish to add to my permanent collection. The music simply does not "grow" and give renewed pleasure. It does, however, begin to sound strangely familiar and repetitive. Every number on the CD sounds more like the one before it and the one after it.

The saddest aspect of this is that an original and exciting musician like Liebert sounds as if he wrote elevator music. I know I'm being harsh. This is not a lousy album; it is simply a big disappointment.

I heard "Reaching Out 2 You" -- the first track on this CD by Ottmar Liebert -- on Pandora on line and knew that I had to have it. So for the first time in a long time, I bought a CD (thank you Amazon!). What a joy! The musicianship on this album is brilliant, and I think you'd have to be dead not to want to move to the rumba rythms.

The downside: you'll want more...

What can I say, Ottmar is Fanastic!! Listen to this CD all the time, workingout to when I am just relaxing.

Simply poetry for my soul

Absolutely love this song, but I have one problem...has this song been a theme song for a movie or tv show? Can anyone help me with this delimma?