Night Sessions

Chris Botti，小号手，人年轻音乐资历却已十分丰富。十岁开始演奏，高中时开始职业生涯；生涯早期曾与萨克斯风手George Coleman、小号手Woody Shaw等爵士乐传奇人物合作。这些人的音乐常剑走偏锋，Botti在这段期间的收穫反映在他演奏时不温不火的声调与天马行空的创意。随后Botti转战流行音乐圈。受过爵士乐的洗礼，Botti不甘生涯仅止于泡泡糖般的流行声响，合作的对象均为「言之有物」的流行乐坛大将；如巴布狄伦Bob Dylan、艾瑞莎法兰克林Aretha Franklin、保罗赛门Paul Simon与史汀Sting等角色。从他曾合作过的对象，听者即使还不认识他，也应可以从中建立起某种「信任」，因为Chris Botti不像是会随便玩音乐的泛泛之辈。   此张专辑为Chris加盟新力的首张专辑，收录Sting创作，葛莱美奖得主夏恩柯文Shawn Colvin跨刀合作All Would Envy，一张千万不能错过的爵士专辑。 by William Ruhlmann At the precise moment when a corporate reshuffling and a reduced roster led to death knells in the press for Columbia Records' jazz division, Chris Botti was signing on after three albums at rival Verve, the jazz arm of Universal. Along with Bela Fleck, poached from Warner Bros., Botti seemed to represent the new lean-and-mean Columbia Jazz, an eclectic, contemporary artist with considerable crossover potential to go with his jazz legitimacy. While the dominant sound on Botti's Columbia debut is naturally his haunting, minor-key trumpet playing, highly reminiscent of the more introspective aspect of Miles Davis, his original music, co-written with one-name producer Kipper, is strongly reminiscent of the pop-jazz approach of his most recent employer, Sting, whose tour hiatus created the opportunity for the recording of the album. Sting even contributes a song, the samba-paced All Would Envy," complete with lyrics describing a wealthy May-December marriage, sung by Shawn Colvin. But elsewhere his spare, stylish, multi-cultural music provides a guiding principle. Botti is true to the basic tenets of smooth jazz, which hold that a steady beat within a propulsive rhythm track must be maintained, over which the soloist makes his presence felt. But he and Kipper keep things simple, often using an acoustic guitar to create musical textures more suggestive of Rio than west Los Angeles, where the record was actually cut. And even with his less-is-more style of playing, Botti is capable of coming up with melodies that would be strong enough to support lyrics if someone wanted to write them. (A good example is "Light the Stars.") "Easter Parade," the final track, is by the members of the Blue Nile, another good touchstone for the trumpeter's moody, atmospheric sound. The result is a step above most of the cookie-cutter contemporary jazz albums of the day.