Liebert mixes funk, flamenco

Here’s what Ottmar Liebert said when asked to describe his stage show: “Several wild animals and lots of pyro. And the bass player wears super-high heels and sometimes keels over. It’s really funny.”

The joke, of course, is that this is exactly not what you will be seeing when Liebert and his band Luna Negra arrive at The Met tonight.

Liebert is a flamenco guitarist. His 1990 album “Nouveau Flamenco” made him an instant world-music star. The first song on that album, “Barcelona Nights,” is probably familiar even to those who don’t think they know Ottmar Liebert.

He can’t be accused of being a purist — one song on his current album fuses flamenco and funk — yet he is certainly serious enough about his music not to glitz it up with pyrotechnics.

The truth about this show is that it will feature Liebert on guitar, a bass player-keyboardist and two percussionists playing everything from the Indian tablas to the African djembes to the flamenco cajon.

As for Liebert, he has branched out into electric, steel-string and fretless guitars in the last decade. Yet on this tour he is concentrating largely on his flamenco roots. His new CD, “La Semana,” is a conscious attempt to return to fundamentals.

“On this CD I set very clear parameters,” he said from his home in Santa Fe, N.M. “I was going to use only one flamenco guitar that I got a couple of years ago. But I allowed myself to do any sort of (electronic) manipulation of that sound, and add effects to it. But it is one single instrument on the whole album.”

The result is an album that has the flamenco sound Liebert made famous in “Nouveau Flamenco,” yet is full of surprises.

For instance, one tune is titled “AlhambraJackson,” an homage to its mixture of flamenco and funk.

Alhambra is the citadel of the Moorish kings who invaded Spain in the Middle Ages. “A large part of flamenco is the Arabic influence, the Moorish thing,” said Liebert.

“And Jackson is a reference to Paul Jackson Jr., a guitar player and the guy I think played more R&B sessions than any other guitar player. When I first came to the States, he’s the guy I thought was the (best).”

Liebert was born in Cologne, Germany, to a Chinese-German father and a Hungarian mother. When he came to America as a young man, he played in jazz-funk bands in Boston. He then moved to Santa Fe and started playing his own style of flamenco-influenced music, a style that seemingly had little commercial potential.

He put out a limited edition recording and some radio stations in California started playing it. Before long, the CD was picked up by a label and released as “Nouveau Flamenco.”

“It became the little record that did it by itself,” said Liebert. “It’s close to 2 million copies (sold) of that record alone.”

Liebert will play some familiar songs from that CD tonight at The Met, as well as many other favorites from his 20 subsequent albums.

The show was originally scheduled at the Big Easy, but was moved to The Met to open up a date for another show. All previously purchased tickets will be honored and will have a comparable reserved seat at The Met.

“I was hoping for that because last year we played at The Met and I really enjoyed it,” said Liebert.