Mr. Alsmann, you have an extensive record collection.

Do you still roam flea markets or visit junk shops in search of undiscovered treasures?

Christian Riethmuller

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The flea market hunting season is over for record collectors.

But what I still find at flea markets is Murano glass or interesting ceramics.

But records?

There is a fantastic store in Cologne that I visit regularly.

And when it's not Corona, I'm on tour a lot and already know where to find something in the respective cities.

And our sound engineer, who always travels with us, is also a collector and has usually already found a conspiratorial address for us.

Otherwise, of course, the Internet is important, although remote ordering of music is a tradition for me anyway.

I used to buy by mail from various dealers in America when I was a young boy.

It was a bit time-consuming, but it always worked well, and so I was able to lay a nice foundation for my collection at a young age.

Are you looking for specific labels or specifically for artists?

Everything is possible.

But there are labels from the fifties that make me shrug: Rainbow Records, for example, or Orpheus.

Now do you listen to such treasures as a fan, or do you choose them for your radio show on WDR, but according to what criteria are such songs included in your repertoire as a musician?

I have a radical requirement: the song has to be in German.

Or there should at least be a German text.

In some cases I had to ensure that there was a German text myself, of course with the permission of the original publisher.

Then there are other criteria: First of all, since I know my limits, it shouldn't be anything I fuss about.

It was going to be a song that I could come up with some charming arrangement ideas for, again suiting my unusually staffed band of piano, bass, drums, percussion and vibraphone.

In addition, the piece should be jazz-capable, something should come to mind within the jazz soundscape.

And it should be fun, because we're on tour with a piece like that for a long time and then play it 250 times.

Can your band have a say?

We are a friendship band and have been playing together for decades.

we trust each other

So if a colleague frowns too much and convinces with his many years of experience, they'll tinker with it.

You certainly know many forgotten songs that deserve to be played, but the audience also wants something popular.

How do you manage the balance?

When I'm preparing, I always think about the album and always about the live program.

And I think of the humor aspect of the concert evenings.

And the total blockbuster has its charm!

In our previous program "Italy" we played "Sag mir quando, Tell me when" or "Volare", because it wasn't about presenting completely unknown canzones, but about playing well-known songs in our style.

With the German program it's something different, I see myself in the role of a truffle pig.

So the current "LIEBE" tour includes some certainly unknown pieces, while others like "One should be able to play the piano" are clearly to be seen under the humor aspect.

This solo, which I very consciously play the way I play it, is not without self-mockery.

Her new album is called “LIEBE”.

Is this a reference to Nat King Cole's song LOVE?

The album should actually be called “Lieder der Liebe”.

At some point I was having lunch with my record company boss - we ate fish - and exchanged ideas about possible titles for the album.

He then wrote out the word "Love" with the dots and put "Nat King Cole" after it.

That's it, I said.

He said that we would then need a German text, but I knew that it existed.

Not only did Nat King Cole record a German version of the song, onomatopoeic of course, but there is also an original version of this Bert Kaempfert composition by Gerhard Wendland with the exact spelling of the title "LIEBE".

It was clear then that we had to record it.

Götz Alsmann will play in the Alte Oper Frankfurt on May 22nd, in Dreieich on July 10th and in the Centralstation Darmstadt on September 23rd and 24th.

Further concert dates on the artist's website https://goetz-alsmann.de/