Pop and Jazz Reviews : Liebert Blends Too Smoothly at Wiltern

Anyone unfamiliar with Ottmar Liebert’s music pretty much had to go with the flow on Saturday at the Wiltern Theatre. Not once during the program did the Santa Fe-based guitarist offer either the title of a tune or a few words to his enthusiastic audience, other than to minimally introduce his four musical colleagues.

It may have been just as well. Despite Liebert’s demonstrable excellence as an acoustic guitarist, many of the pieces blended easily and indistinguishably into each other.

Although he came to prominence with a technique dubbed “nouveau flamenco,” Liebert has not been modest about adapting any other styles--mostly Latin--into his more recent work. Bits and pieces of bossa nova, salsa, North African and Colombian music drifted through the various numbers.

Liebert’s playing--the centerpiece of his music--was intense and articulate, if a bit mechanical. Stylistically influenced by Django Reinhardt, it lacked the urgent rhythmic drive of such Reinhardt descendants as Paco de Lucia and Al Di Meola.

Most perplexing of all, the music and the playing failed to reveal either interior substance or thoughtful development--not a problem if Liebert intends to produce frothy pop background music. But in the past he has identified Miles Davis as an inspiration. On Saturday, other than in his unwillingness to communicate verbally with his listeners, the association was difficult to perceive.