Photos: Bruno Mesarić
In his successful career, spanning over several decades, Chris Botti has worked with many music stars, from Sting to Aretha Franklin, establishing his reputation as a virtuoso trumpeter and a versatile musician
With his finely etched features and piercing green eyes, trumpeter Chris Botti has an attractive aura of a film idol combined with the simmering lyricism of an expert balladeer, as described by The Mercury News. However, Botti is, first and foremost, an artist whose music ranges from tender ballads to magnificent standards, from classical jazz to fierce rock rhythms – performed with great panache and virtuosity at all times.
An instrumentalist whose body of work ranges from collaborations with legends such as Paul Simon and Aretha Franklin to intimate jazz projects, Botti has left a lasting mark on the contemporary music scene. The American jazz star played with Buddy Rich and shared the stage with Frank Sinatra; he even gave the audience in the Croatian town of Čakovec an opportunity to witness his expert skills when he held a world-class concert in mid-May 2024.
In the Botti family, music was always the essence of life: ‘My mother was a classical pianist, and my grandmother was a professional organ player’, the musician recalls.
Therefore, Chris Botti started on his music journey on the piano at the age of five, but he fell in love with the trumpet in the third grade.
‘I wanted a trumpet from the moment I saw, on TV, the charismatic Doc Severinsen, the band leader in The Tonight Show, come to the stage and play the instrument. That’s what sparked my interest in the third grade. Three years later, I heard Miles Davis playing one of his albums and that triggered my emotional instinct, making it a life-long dream career. I was lucky to find extraordinary mentors. We had a great school band director, Bob Ernst, and I learned a lot from Fred Sautter from the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. I practised ten hours a day’, Botti confides.
Apart from the trumpet, can you play another instrument?
‘I write and I play the piano from time to time, but I don’t see myself as a pianist at all. It takes a lot of time to practise the trumpet – it’s so demanding – and that’s why most great trumpet players play only this instrument. The trumpet is the ultimate physical test which requires staying in good playing form every day’, says the American trumpet player.
