[TPIN] Mr. Botti

[Achias1 at mchsi.com]

My impressions of Chris Botti's concert:

First, My seat was right next to the stage, at stage left putting me right in
front of the guitar player and close enough to Chris to see his expressions and
fingerings. He mostly stayed right in the middle except when somebody else was
being featured. Once, when the guitar player began a beautiful and technical
solo, those of us in front could hear Chris from side say, "Showoff!"

His group was phenominal, all of them veterans with him except the new piano 
player.

His Martin Committee looked original. There was still some lacquer on the bell
and other places, but most was worn off around the contact points. The
mouthpiece looked like a Schilke. His mike was clipped to the bell and was 
remote.

Chris opened with a very soulful "Ave Maria" accompanied by the piano, and later
the others entered the stage and joined him. It was gorgeous, but unfortunately
below the pitch which surprised me from such a great player. I'm guessing it was
the cold horn blues. Later, his intonation was great. His horn didn't have a
third valve slide ring, and I didn't see him making any kind off pitch
adjustments with the slides, but the usual trouble notes were right in tune most
of the time. He used a LOT of reverb all the time which made the very few
intonation problems obvious after his cutoffs.

Although he did do some up-tempo stuff, most of the selections were based on
ballads which he plays quite well. My fears that he would be a David
Sanborn-type player were dispelled when he showed some great technical work in
his solos. Even some accurate octave jumps, but nothing that would take away
from the emotion of the moment. A distinguishing riff of his might be the
occasional use of a fast trill on a long note.

He spent a lot of time speaking to and about a 15-year-old girl in the first row
right in front of him which made him seem a little more personable.

He did mention that he dropped out of the Indiana University Music School.

An amusing story he told was about being a new guy in Sinatra's band. during a
rehearsal, Chris did a solo and Frank turned around and said, "Nice solo." This
made Chris feel real hot and like a buddy to Frank, so later he went up to Frank
and asked how the solo was and if he should try anything different. Frank blew
him off with something like, "That was fine, kid - just keep it up." Immediately
after he left Frank, Frank's assistant came up to Chris and said, "Never bother
Mr. Sinatra again!"

I enjoyed the concert and I think I learned some more about playing emotionally
from Chris.

>From his website: http://www.chrisbotti.com/schedule.html it looks like he's
touring with Dianna Krall. Lucky dude! He said that after the concert they were
heading for Italy but that's not listed on his schedule. Hmm.

Dave