Chris Botti - Night Sessions

Chris Botti
Night Sessions
2001 Sony/Columbia

Producer: Kipper

Personnel:

Chris Botti - Trumpet
Kipper - Keyboards, Bass Synth, Drum programming
Dominic Miller - Acoustic and Electric Guitars
Jimmy Johnson - Bass
Vinnie Colaiuta - Drums
Abraham Laboriel Jr. - Drums
Shane Fontayne - Guitar
Jeff Young - Additional Keys
Jeff Lorber - Additional Keys
Bill Reichenbach - Trombone
Billy Childs - Keyboards
Luis Conte - Percussion
Christian McBride - Bass
Shawn Colvin - vocals
Lani Groves - Additional Vocals
Heitor Pereira - Guitar
Marc Shulman - Guitar
Camilla - Vocals
Kazu Matsui - Shakuhachi


So, I have a problem with Chris Botti...he is an extremely talented individual, and once in a long while he will let that talent really show - once with his very impressive score for the film Caught, and once as one-fourth of the BLUE Quartet (with David Torn, Bill Bruford, and Tony Levin). He has a tone that is beautifully clean and clear and pulls a lot of emotion from use of a Harmon mute (not as good as Miles, but as relative newcomers go, he can hold his own damn well).

So what is the problem? For whatever reasons, his own solo output is spent in a surround-sound limbo that is either of his own design or because he is being led down a path of personal mediocrity. He has recently been performing with Sting, and this album shows him working closely with another recent Sting sideman, the mono-monikered Kipper. He surrounds himself with topline session folks like Vinnie Colaiuta (Sting, Zappa), Christian McBride (solo, The Philadelphia Experiment), Dominic Miller (Sting, Level 42), and Heitor Pereira (Simply Red, Caetano Veloso), he has mostly decent material, he has more than ample chops - where is the missing bit? The sound. He spends the album having small glimmers of brilliance among a diluted mix that is equal parts poor attempts at mimicking Mark Isham tone poems, forgettable balladry that sounds ripped off from Stings circular file, and bad acid-jazz (read: the kind that the Instinct Label made after it castrated its stable into something barely discernable from quiet-storm fluff, something not helped by the presence of Jeff Lorber, even if it is for only one track).

Maybe its Sony trying to market him to the lowest common denominator with the stupid sticker on the front of the case that reads "The Sexiest Trumpeter Since Chet Baker, Featured Soloist with Sting, an inventive composer and player...with a tone from heaven". What the fuck does comparing his sexiness have to do with a damn thing? This is jazz, not bloody Britney Spears in full proto-porn bubblegum regalia.

Before I get to the few good bits, I would like to vent on the two remaining aspects that are wrong with this release - the throwaway song contributed by Sting and sung by Shawn Colvin....frankly, it drags the listener into a bossanova coma. Sting singing it might have made it palattable, but Shawn has neither the expressiveness or the capability to make it work, so it sounds like comfort-food-starbucks-background-music hell. Kill it now, or give the song some extra kick and get someone who can give it sincerity, like Jonatha Brooke or Chaka Khan.

And now, on to the good stuff. Damn, this little boy has some tone! He really captures the muted buoyance of Miles in a few spots (without getting lost in the technical dreck as is so common in say.....Wynton Marsalis), and when he goes into floating ambience, he can certainly evoke shades of Marc Isham. That is a bigger compliment than many would suspect. You Move Me is probably the closest is gets; slow, deliberate, and haunting, with Light The Stars veering closely in that same space. Through an Open Window sounds dangerously similar in parts to a fantastic Sting B-side, January Stars.* The album closes on a somber, but infinately elegant note, with Easter Parade.

If you can find this for the special 'discovery' price it is marketed as in certain outlets, it is possibly worth a grab (unless of course, you dont like your jazz too challenging, in which case by all means grab this little puppy). Otherwise, look for his more ambitious pieces, or get the real deals: Miles, Isham, Dizzy, et al.

* On the If I Ever Lose My Faith single, it is actually one song with 2 sets of lyrics - January Stars and Everybody Laughed (But You). If you can find it, grab it, as its a little known gem.