>>PREVIEW
CHRIS BOTTI
Tuesday, October 3
Knox United Church
Trumpeter Chris Botti has consistently topped the charts since his 1995 debut album, a solo effort hot on the heels of a major world tour with Paul Simon. You’ve probably seen his name linked with Sting, Joni Mitchell and a host of other luminaries. No doubt about it, Botti’s a horn man with the chops to meet most any situation. However, it must be a challenge for Botti to maintain his jazz identity in the midst of so many pop musicians. Not so, he says divulging his three part strategy – know what to take from the party, know who you are, rely on your training.
Botti’s gigs with these pop-heavies have uniquely prepared him as a jazz musician, giving him the confidence to do what a lot of other jazz musicians find difficult – play the big crowds.
"It gave me my first exposure to big-time rock ’n’ roll," says Botti about touring with Paul Simon. "Although that’s not really rock ’n’ roll, but it’s that kind of approach to touring and playing in a big arena. It’s helped me to this day – you know a lot of jazz musicians when they get on a bigger stage they don’t know how to project or interact with that kind of a larger audience. My experiences with not only Paul, but with Sting and Joni Mitchell have given me the ability to interact on larger stages."
Botti has clearly defined himself as a jazzman with a difference since well before his tours with Paul Simon and others. His style is not the bebop style he heard when he studied in New York in his ’20s. Instead, it’s unique and true to himself – still jazz, but Botti style.
"When I look at my work and the records that I’ve made, even though they have a serious link to jazz, they’re also linked to pop music, they’re linked to film music, all those kinds of influences that mix up and make me me," he says.
"If I just wanted to play bebop trumpet and come out in the legacy of Kenny Dorham, I would have fallen on my face and over a long period of time I just would have ended up playing in clubs in Brooklyn. That would have been fine, but that’s not honest, you know. You come to a point in your life where you hit that crossroads and think maybe that’s not for me and maybe I don’t want to learn all that repertoire (bebop) and live it every single day, I want to do something else."
Finally, there is one other thing that separates Botti from pop musicians – spontaneous creativity. And, it seems, it’s at its most obvious during Botti’s heavy touring schedule, now in its sixth year.
"When you’re on the road playing every night, the creativity becomes about the playing. You know a lot of people in pop music they say, ‘Well, I need to go away to a peaceful place and write my music so I can be creative,’ but for a jazz musician, you can learn so much on the stand every night playing music so the gruelling touring pace is actually an aid to being creative." |
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