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Chris Botti makes himself at home at the Blue Note in NYC

Chris Botti
Chris Botti

For Chris Botti, the evolution of his month-long residency at the Blue Note in New York City began almost two decades ago with one-week stints that would lengthen over the years. “It’s kind of like Gilligan’s Island, where it started out as a three-hour tour,” he explains, laughing. “It sort of blossomed into what it is now, where for the last 8 to 10 years, we’ve been doing the full month, meaning 56 shows over 28 nights.” Now in its 18th year, the residency kicked off on December 5 and runs through the holidays until the final night of shows on January 1.

Botti says that he and the band look forward all year to this residency, but notes that being in the same venue offers some challenges as well, in part because a lot of people come to see multiple nights of their show. Their solution is not to switch up the set dramatically, but rather rely on improvisation to make each performance fresh for return listeners. “It might be the same sort of set list, but it sounds different within each song because there's so much freedom to riff and go wherever we're going,” he says. “Which is different than a popular singer who just sings the lyrics of the song and the song parts. Our stuff is much more freewheeling and that brings out a whole other aspect of improvisation and group playing, which is appealing for us too.”

He cites the example of Miles Davis, one of his heroes, as an inspiration for dealing with that challenge. “He played ‘Stella by Starlight’ a thousand times differently in 1959 than he did in 1968. It was a completely different kind of take on the song, even though it's the same sort of song. When he changes the band and they all kind of got muscular at different times, that's kind of what I try to base our live show on. If you just look at the way Miles played on Live at the Blackhawk and then in his next big residency that’s famously on tape, Live at the Plugged Nickel, you can hear how different it sounds even though they’re both Miles Davis residencies. He was a completely different cat by the time they hit the Plugged Nickel, very adventurous in a good way.” However, to be clear, Botti is not simply rehashing the same repertoire. It turns out that about half of the music during the residency has changed this year. They’ve added about seven new songs from Botti’s repertoire, as well as three or more new songs from the forthcoming album on Blue Note.

Although the slate of 56 shows in 28 nights sounds quite arduous, Botti and his band have been touring nearly non-stop since June 2021 and they aren’t looking at any real time off until a couple of weeks in March. "These are the musical equivalent of First World problems,” he says. “I mean, when you're a seven-year-old kid, you say, ‘My dream is to play music in front of a bunch of people.’ And then it happens. It’s a spectacular feeling.”

Throughout the month, Botti will feature various guests including violinist Caroline Campbell, vocalist Sy Smith and others. Blue-eyed soul singer-songwriter John Splithoff, known for his hit song “Raye,” will be appearing throughout the run and will be including some of his repertoire in the sets.
In addition, Botti’s residencies have become known for surprise guests, like his former employer Sting. However, Botti was quick to remind us that Sting is not in town, so concert-goers shouldn’t expect a cameo from the charismatic singer-songwriter.

Botti says that for his part the surprise is simply who shows up in the audience. On the first night at The Blue Note, producer and keyboardist David Foster and his wife singer/actress Katharine McPhee were there. Foster produced Botti’s upcoming album on Blue Note and he gave the trumpeter one of his newest songs for the album. “If we play Chicago or San Francisco, we always roll in and play one night, maybe a couple,” he explains. “But, here, having all these shows, we get to hang with all of our friends in the music business, which is what we don't really get to do the rest of the year. It’s fun to hang after the show and see our friends and make music for them.”

Among his regular bandmates are drummer Lee Pearson and the underrated saxophonists Chad Lefkowitz Brown (also known as Chad LB) and Andy Snitzer, the latter doing three weeks and the former doing one. “They’re both beasts,” Botti says. “It's awesome to switch out the vocabulary on that instrument, because they're both such wonderful players and quite different. It’s cool for us that are up there every night to feel and hear new blood in the band.” Botti noted that although each has a very different sound, both have an affinity for Michael Brecker, with Snitzer even a graduate of the same high school (Cheltenham, outside Philadelphia) as well as an owner of one of Brecker’s saxophones.

Watch Chris Botti perform "Hallelujah" at Madeleine Albright's funeral:

Chris Botti - 'Hallelujah'

Given Botti’s relentless performance schedule, the upcoming week he’ll spend on the Blue Note at Sea cruise in January may be the closest he gets to a vacation. “That’s true, it will be like a vacation,” he says. “I’m such a fan of Randy Brecker, who I know is going to be on that cruise. And then of course with Robert Glasper, Marcus Miller, Don Was and everyone else aboard, that’s going to be really fun.”

Botti hopes to have even more fun on a cruise that he’ll be hosting in 2024 called Botti at Sea, which sails the Caribbean February 8-15 and will feature Foster and McPhee, Gregory Porter, Lisa Fischer, Melody Gardot, Keb’ Mo’, and comedian Alonzo Bodden. Interestingly, Botti is particularly excited about one of the non-music acts performing on the cruise, mentalist Lior Suchard, who he thinks is going to steal the show. “It is just spectacular,” Botti says. “It’s just mind-blowing the way he reads people's minds in the most creative ways. It’s like a stunt you've never seen. Man, I don't know how he does it, but he does it. It’s mesmerizing what he does.” I’d have to think this is the first festival, on land or sea, that will feature a mentalist. Any jazz critic in attendance better watch their step.

Not someone who thought of himself as a cruise performer (few jazz musicians do initially), Botti backed into the experience after Diana Krall was booked for a special luxury jazz cruise set to sail in the Mediterranean in 2014, organized by then Entertainment Cruise Productions (now known as Jazz Cruises). Krall fell ill right before the cruise and had to cancel. Botti just happened to be rolling out of Poland at the time and he and his group joined the cruise leaving out of Barcelona. Talk about First World problems.

He says that Michael Lazaroff of Jazz Cruises had been after him to host a cruise for a long time. “I had been reluctant to do it just because I didn't know if it was my sensibility to host something,” Botti explains. “Finally they came to me this year and I said, ‘Look, I'll do it on one condition: That I can get the musicians I want,’” he explains. “We reached out to a bunch of people and basically all of them said yes. And that was the most gratifying thing. So now in the wake of how everything is reset in the world, I'm having a new outlook. I’m going into this with a real open mind and with excitement. I'm super excited to see that and to start curating for the years to come a tour that's just like an adult classy music tour, whether it leans jazz or leans sort of like elevated pop. That's my take on it, to have that balance.”

He indeed takes pride in his role as a curator. “I’m proud of the collection of musicians, and to be able to present to an audience what I think is something that will move them. For me, if it’s just a jazz cruise, then it can get a little too academic sometimes. And if it's just a pop cruise, it may not have enough high level musicianship. So if we thread that needle and have people come in and be able to feel that variety in a very high-brow sort of way, I think it could impact a lot of peoples’ desire to maybe come on cruises with us in future and tell their friends.”

Watch Chris Botti perform "You Don't Know What Love Is":

Chris Botti Performs You Don't Know What Love Is

Tours, residencies and cruises aside, Botti still has to deal with one of the most unforgiving instruments in music, one that is hard to take even a day off from playing. “Yea, it's brutal. Playing the trumpet is like, I don't know, maybe being a ballet dancer or something like that. It’s similar in the fact that it's just a nonstop regimented sort of life and very isolated. And, as you get older, the trumpet doesn't get any easier. So you have to make sure that you get enough hours in a day to keep your elasticity up. But when you're on stage and have had no sleep and are flying all over the place, it's sometimes hard to keep that motivation going. But you’ve got to because the trumpet will embarrass you quite quickly on stage.”

At least Botti will be in one place during December, so he’ll have a bit more time for practice. Although he and his band will be performing right through the holiday season, he makes one thing perfectly clear. No Christmas tunes. Not one. “I felt like there are so many bands out on the road playing Christmas music, that we just decided we're not gonna do it,” Botti explains. “And we've never had one complaint about it. Not one. On Christmas Day, they all hang with the family and they come down to our show and it's packed and everyone loves it. But we don't really want to sit up there and play ‘Jingle Bells’ you know? It's more of a gathering and people totally understand that and they love it.” It probably doesn’t hurt that we’ve all been hearing holiday music in stories and public places since shortly after Halloween.

Chris Botti performs at The Blue Note NYC Dec. 5 – Jan. 1. Learn more at the venue’s website.

For over 27 years, Lee Mergner served as an editor and publisher of JazzTimes until his resignation in January 2018. Thereafter, Mergner continued to regularly contribute features, profiles and interviews to the publication as a contributing editor for the next 4+ years. JazzTimes, which has won numerous ASCAP-Deems Taylor awards for music journalism, was founded in 1970 and was described by the All Music Guide, as “arguably the finest jazz magazine in the world.”