August 18, 2023
Chris Botti has announced the October 20 release of his Blue Note Records debut Vol. 1. One of the most popular instrumentalists in the world, the GRAMMY-winning trumpeter makes a fresh start on Vol.1. Having successfully crossed over from jazz renown to pop stardom, Botti’s first album in more than a decade finds him crossing back with a small group project focused on acoustic jazz and classic standards. Vol. 1 is introduced today by the gorgeous lead single “Old Folks” and is available for pre-order now on Blue Note Store exclusive color vinyl, black vinyl, CD, and digital download.
Botti will be touring extensively across the U.S. this Fall and has announced the return of his beloved Annual Holiday Residency at Blue Note New York, the storied Greenwich Village jazz club, where he’ll be performing two shows a night from December 11 to January 7. Visit chrisbotti.com for a full list of tour dates.
Vol. 1 is a beautiful ballads collection that presents stunning new renditions of favorite standards including “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “My Funny Valentine,” “Someday My Prince Will Come,” and “Blue In Green,” as well as a cover of Coldplay’s “Fix You” and the vocal feature “Paris” with John Splithoff. The album was produced by David Foster and features performances by violinist Joshua Bell, pianist Taylor Eigsti, guitarist Gilad Hekselman, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, and others.
“I turned 60 in 2022, at a time that seemed like a restart for so many things in the world,” Botti says. “I wanted to strip away all the orchestral arrangements and focus more on my playing, the playing of my band, and these jazz classics that we always love playing on stage.”
While Botti could boast of the major names with whom he’s shared stages, this project allows him to share his enthusiasm for the jazz greats past and present that excite him from Miles Davis to Keith Jarrett to Pat Metheny to Brad Mehldau. He points to landmark albums like Davis’ Kind of Blue, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, or Metheny’s duo outing with Charlie Haden Beyond the Missouri Sky as models for the kind of sophisticated mood music he set out to make.
Not that Vol. 1 is a complete about-face – longtime fans will immediately recognize Botti’s glowing tone and regal melodicism, as well as his flair for investing the narrative of a song with high drama and vibrant emotion. “There’s a cinematic quality that I like to hear in music, and that I’ve found that audiences really love,” he says. “The essence of that remains on this album. It’s paramount to me that there is incredible beauty and elegance to all of the performances.”
