Jersey Arts Podcast · ArtPride New Jersey

Bewitched by Botti: A Chat with the Grammy Winning Trumpeter

·26 min·1 clip

Barbra Streisand later asked Botti to do five duets with her in the middle of her show.

1. Jersey Arts Podcast features Chris Botti and his April appearance at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, New Jersey. 2. Host Gina Marie Rodriguez interviews Grammy-winning trumpeter Chris Botti, a musician known for collaborations with Sting, Barbra Streisand, Andrea Bocelli, David Foster, and others. 3. The episode asks what shaped Botti’s career, how he works onstage, and what listeners should expect from his live show. 4. Botti says Doc Severinsen on The Tonight Show first drew him to trumpet playing. 5. Botti says Miles Davis playing "My Funny Valentine" is what made him want to become a jazz musician. 6. Botti places that decision at age 11 or 12 and says he had "no plan B." 7. Botti describes his relationship with Sting as a long-running collaboration built over a few years in Sting’s band. 8. Botti says Sting’s belief that an instrument could cross over into popular music was a major stamp of approval. 9. Botti points to a Boston concert with John Mayer, Steven Tyler, Yo-Yo, Sting, and Josh Groban as a career-shaping collaboration. 10. Botti explains that jam sessions have "guideposts" and are freer than a pop music show. 11. Botti says his album Italia connects to his Italian background because his father is Italian and he grew up there in first and second grade. 12. Botti says Andrea Bocelli sang on Italia and later on Impressions, and he calls Bocelli a great friend. 13. Botti describes the Dean Martin duet on Italia as a Capitol Studios project built from Martin’s old vocal performance. 14. Botti says the track was assembled with his band by mapping a new template over the archived vocal. 15. Botti says the long gap before Volume 1 came from record-business changes, a Columbia Records split, and COVID delays. 16. Botti says David Foster produced Volume 1 and that they have planned a duet show together. 17. Botti says Barbara Streisand’s nightly performances of "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" made him want to record it. 18. Botti says music demands presence and links that idea to parenting and even racing cars. 19. Botti sounds reflective, conversational, and occasionally self-deprecating while Rodriguez asks direct questions from a non-musician’s perspective. 20. Fans of jazz, celebrity collaborations, and stagecraft will get the most from this conversation. 21. Listeners seeking deep technical trumpet instruction may want a different episode.

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