Otmar Binder – English

On Boogie Woogie Turnaround:

It all started back in 1978, when my father brought home this LP for me, the debut album by a brand new band, including some ex-pupils of the school he taught in: it was called “Shake That Boogie-Woogie”.  They called themselves the “Mojo Blues Band”, and that was it for me – as soon as the record-player’s needle lifted up at the end of the record, I started it back from the beginning.

So much for the good-old “boogie-woogie epiphany” so many young players experience. And if I told you that back then, when I was starting out, I never dreamt of playing with musicians of the calibre that perform on this CD, maybe that would sound nice and humble, and like a very obvious thing to say – the only trouble is: it wouldn’t be true.In fact, I always dreamt of playing with musicians able and willing to offer everything they have, from wherever they may have picked it up from – whether it be from years of playing this specific style of music, or from interaction with jazz, classical, tango, cabaret, etc…

Some of these people I’d never met before, but they were still happy to step straight in and lay it down right away in the studio, sometimes with no rehearsal at all, with no instructions, no “maybe what you also could try out is…” Empathy, trust and good ears: these actually did do the trick. The joy of playing live with no click-track and, instead, telling the technician, “Excuse me, could I please have a little more of that snare drum in my headphones? – Thanks!”

And speaking of thanks – a big thank you to everyone involved for being there (for being dabei as we say in German), for supporting this project the way you do.

And the best thing about it all is this – you can actually hear how much fun it was.

You really can.