Album Review: The Horn Blows & The Heart Sighs on The New Album CHRIS BOTTI VOL. 1

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, welcome back to Bobby’s CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling 

From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.

Many’s the people out there in music-fan-land that well know these words and the timeless tune that goes with them.  You can all practically hear it in your heads, clearly, just by reading those lyrics, can’t you, my angels? The voice in your head is almost certainly that of the classic Irish tenor lilting through the verse and soaring up to the high notes… This week’s album entry in the BobbyFiles comes from master Trumpeter Chris Botti, who just put out his self-titled VOL 1 - and if this is VOL 1, the outlook is pretty darn pretty for VOL 2. Opening this collection with this venerable tune played so slowly and respectfully might seem like a gamble, and, indeed, for the first 40 or so seconds of this cut, it was… and then Chris’s trumpet steps in with the famous chorus, and, despite it being instrumental playing, one hears his voice… and those words. Botti’s smmmoooooth jazz sound on his vintage Martin Committee large-bore Handcraft trumpet made in 1939 never travels anywhere near the blaring big band, marching band, (tight rubber band) sound one might associate with his instrument of choice and its near cousins of blowing bugles and blasting cornets (however kind their hearts might be). Like a voice singing comes his trumpet, hanging on certain notes and just glancing off others, all in a tone so open and real it truly defies what one might think of the trumpet sound. This first cut, the easiest of the easy-listening smooth jazz numbers of VOL. 1, is also the oldest and serves as an amuse-bouche for the banquet to come. After this, he with the horn and a few friends like Taylor Eigsti (piano), David Foster (piano), Patrick Warren (strings), Vinnie Colaiuta (drums), Zach Moses (bass, electric bass), Julian Pollack (rhodes, piano), Gilad Hekselman (guitar), Leonardo Amuedo (guitar), Shane Fontayne (guitar), Chad Lefkowitz-Brown (saxophone), Joshua Bell (violin), Thomas Morgan (bass), Esteban Castro (piano) join together and move into the more modern fields of the American Songbook and modern jazz classics, for instance…
 

For a pleasant surprise on cut 4 another friend, John Splithoff, jumps in with some lovely liquid vocals on his own song, the uber-romantic PARIS. Splithoff's soothing but precise vocals and poetry of the words make this a song for lovers walking in the city of lights. Chris specializes in a very legato sound even when the tempo is pushed up to this song's rhumba beat. As PARIS builds through his solo and passes back to the voice, they accept each others' challenges, making the music more and more insistent in its sensuality.

This writer could not tell you, dear readers, what it is that prompts a trumpeter to mute his horn - a mute is that funny, conical device you will sometimes see players stuff in the business end of their instrument that gives the trumpet that high, tinny tone that still manages to sound romantic - but Botti does this off and on during VOL 1, and with cut 2 he jumps from the early 1900s DANNY BOY to the 1940s BEWITCHED, BOTHERED AND BEWILDERED, a beloved Broadway ballad of Bobby’s. Muted with that tinny jazz/blues feel to it, this is the after-hours version of the Rodgers & Hart classic. A Jazz musician sitting in a half-lit joint with whiskey and a cigarette in an ashtray on the table next to him… just playing and riffing and discovering what he can in the music played from the soul so deep it sounds casual. Then his pal, guitarist Gilad Hekselman, walks in the room, picks up his strings, and plays a riff, just as soulful and as casual… it is truly one of the more perfect versions of this song we have ever heard. Reaching back a little further (1937) for SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME, this beautiful Frank Churchill and Larry Morey tune is a legendary Disney classic that really never had it so good. The opening Smooth jazz phrases from Chris give way to hotter riffs in the piano and sax - each taking their turn to Build on what Chris laid down and then he comes back to re-tune it all with his own free riffing.

The last cut we will call out will be MY FUNNY VALENTINE… Now you just knew this one was coming, didn’t you, my angels? Chris goes mute-free here to make this the warm sensual serving of sex that it is meant to be… and then a Romany violin (the kind that plays for lovers on European street corners or in restaurants) enters. Joshua Bell is actually thrilling with his choices, stylistically, and is such a surprise-out-of-nowhere kind of sound. This lonely, longing solo becomes a love duet between instrumental opposites in so many gorgeous ways. Produced by David Foster and curated by himself and Chris Botti, this is an album for lovers and their romantic nights together. Quite frankly, dear Bobby Fans, if you can’t make hay to this album then you’ve reached the last straw, and before Bobby stretches that metaphor any further, we better give Chris Botti-VOL 1 a hearty and heartfelt…

5 Out Of 5 Rainbows - Put this one in your collection/stream today

You Can Jump In The Amazon & Stream This Gorgeous Music: HERE

You Can See And Hear Everything About Chris Botti On His Webbysite: HERE

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