Chris Botti’s haunting, lyrical lines are delivered in a rich, deep, velvety tone that at times is interspersed with a clear and powerful foray into the far reaches of the upper register. His tone and control, together with his ability to pull at the listener’s heart strings remind this reviewer of early Chet Baker recordings.
Effortlessly straddling the worlds of jazz (four of his albums have reached No1 on the Billboard Jazz Album Chart) and popular music (in 2013 he won the Grammy Award for the ‘Best Pop Instrumental Album’), he is clearly happy in both camps. He has played alongside numerous names including Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Buddy Rich and Frank Sinatra; and listening to Botti’s trumpet style, you get the impression Sinatra would have appreciated his musical sensibility and innate sense of phrasing.
My mother was a classical pianist and my grandma was a professional organ player – I rebelled and wanted to play the trumpet
He has also recorded and performed with bassist/composer Sting, and the two have since become firm friends. As Botti says, “We’ve done so many great things in my life musically, but then he became my family in so many ways and so responsible not only for my success, but how to guide me through a lot of different stuff, being a bandleader and being a friend and all of that.”
Music has always been at the heart of the Botti household: “My mother was a classical pianist and my grandma was a professional organ player.”
Needless to say, Botti started his musical journey on the piano aged five, but by the time he reached the Third Grade, “I rebelled and wanted to play the trumpet. We had a great band director at school named Bob Ernst, and I also studied a lot with Fred Sautter from the Oregon Symphony. I was practicing for 10 hours every day.”
Botti offers an insight into those early years: “My friend Ron Steen, who was the greatest jazz band leader I’ve ever probably worked for, hired me when I was 14, so I would play in the jazz clubs every night before going to bed back in my house. Every single night I was obviously the youngest person in the club, and I learned so much from all these heavy, great jazz musicians. I also learned how to hang out with other musicians, and how to play really sophisticated music.
Posted from: https://www.jazzwise.com/features/article/the-player-chris-botti