“I was playing in Europe at some sort of big Roman amphitheater a few weeks ago and a couple came up to me afterwards and said, ‘We’ve seen you five times and, and our favorite place to see you is the Blue Note, so we’re gonna see you again at the Blue Note.’ What do I say? ‘That’s in like a month in New York!’ And they go, ‘Yeah, we’re spending Christmas there because we’re coming to see you at the Blue Note.’ I was like, ‘Wow, thank you.’ It really feels very nice.”
One of the most successful modern jazz musicians is Chris Botti, a melodious and articulate trumpeter players whose rolodex of friends and collaborators would take hours to flip through (while marveling the whole time). His influence is just as massive and his shows are just as grand, even on the most intimate of stages and smallest of scales. That is, in the best way, what his Blue Note residency is all about: bringing everyone into his warm musical bubble while the wintery New York City air whips about outside. There is a reason people fly into the blustery Big Apple during December and January to see Chris Botti and Co. – and it’s not because they can see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in tandem during the trip. It’s because these heartfelt nights of eccentric, yet tangible jazz performances are to die for.
Botti’s musicianship is stellar and it is during these shows that he connects the art to the audience more than anywhere else any time of year. It’s top notch, soulful, and suave of a show, and the famed and acclaimed trumpeter took some time away from rehearsing for such to speak of the annual winter residency he and his band of jazz masters are gearing up for, which (not to bury the lede) is in its 20th year.
I have to thank you for coming to our city of New York every year for 20 years for this run at the Blue Note. That is such a milestone. I hope you feel proud and are just as excited as we are.
Those are the beginning of the words, I would say. I mean, what a journey it’s been. Not only are we part of the Blue Note family in New York City, but throughout the world; from Japan to America to all over the place. It’s just been a great collaboration between us and the band with these shows, and then to come back to the Blue Note and see a lot of the staff we’ve known over the years… Even if there’s been some changes since COVID, so many friends we’ve made are there at that club. It’s just been an awesome thing. So many people come and say, “We came from wherever,” whether it’s Long Island or Dublin, they’re there. We come every year to see you, to spend our holidays with your family, and to see you at the Blue Note. We’re like the jazz version of the Rockettes [Laughs], and I’m very proud of that, by the way!
t really is such an close knit sort of spectacle, which sounds a bit like an oxymoron, but it is just that. The venue itself really harnesses this closeness, but the musicality and the shows you put on each year for this residency are really bold and cool and just incredible.
Well, thank you very much! You should be my manager. I appreciate that [Laughs].
Truly, though, 20 years of this is exciting. TO have spent 20 years doing a Blue Note residency for the month of December is no small fear. When you first started doing this residency, within the first two or three years, did you ever imagine you’d be doing it for two decades?
Not only did I not realize that, but the first three years were, just one week – actually, six days. Normally when you come into the Blue Note, your act plays six nights in a row, and that is if you’re the headlining act. Then it blossomed into two weeks, still six nights a week. Then it went to three and four weeks. Then we were not working on Christmas, but I was like, “Guys, let’s just work every single day, let’s do 28 straight nights.” And everyone’s like, “Ok, Chris, let’s do it.” [Laughs]. Oddly enough, the first few years that we had Christmas off, we didn’t know that Christmas would become one of our busiest evenings. Everyone does the family stuff in the morning, and then they go out to with the family to the show and they’re all happy to have some entertainment to go see on Christmas Eve and Christmas night. The way that it’s all kind of come together, whether it was planned or not – certainly not that way – in the last 20 years has just been so, so wonderful.
You make a great point that, Christmas, while it a whole day holiday endeavor for a lot of people, is still mostly gifts in the morning, breakfast, family time. Once evening hits, maybe you turn on a movie, maybe you listen to some music, you look at old photo albums. This show of yours, for those who can attend, is a great way to get out and kind of immerse yourself in art and music and in community, but also experience something with the family. Shared experiences are what a lot of holidays and a lot of art is about.
Yes, exactly. Once we leave New York then we do a week in San Francisco, a week in Seattle. We just finished up our residency in Minneapolis.
I can’t tell you how many people come to these, especially the Blue Note, ’cause we played there so many times. “This is our ninth Christmas seeing you,” or “We make the trek every year,” or “Sadly, my mother’s not with us this year, but we’re all here celebrating her memory.” Whatever it is, I have to say that the conversations like that are ones you never think about when you pick up the trumpet at age seven [Laughs], so it’s very gratifying.
That must feel really, really special deep inside; to know that you not only have an effect as a musician all year round, but during the holiday season, you’re a part of people’s family traditions. That has a lot of beautiful weight to it.
Absolutely, and a lot should also be said for how wonderful the people are that run that club are – the staff, everyone backstage, Mack at the door, the wait staff… everyone is just absolutely great. I know many of them personally now and I can say that that has a great effect on making people feel welcome, too, because it is a pretty cramped space and people are waiting outside in the rain and the snow and they just whisk it all away and make it feel effortless when the people they come in. It’s great. […] The Blue Note has challenges in other ways though, because it’s two sets a night and we don’t really skimp on our performance. It’s a pretty physically challenging thing, so because of that, the run really starts three days before in Washington D.C. where we go straight through all the way to January the 20th, which is our next day off.
I always get this like nervous pit in my stomach before this residency, but then once we get to the Blue Note and start rolling and we get a couple shows under our belt and it just starts to flow, then it just feels like, great. What I know is coming up can be nervewracking, and we do more shows than probably any other act out there – forget about jazz, but any act, unless you’re an act that doesn’t travel because you’re a Holiday Inn or restaurant house band or something. You don’t have to get on an airplane then. We, over the years, have toured probably more than most of all bands, and this particular run is the busiest for us, so we’re getting geared up. We’ve got a couple nights in Boston, then a couple days off to get ready, and then we’ll be there in full form and full of energy for the Blue Note.
Wow. I never realized that it is like a marathon. You’ve got to prepare for that.
Yeah [Laughs], but it’s great. It’s great. And oddly enough, we kind of always come out of the weeks at Blue Note thinking that, “Wow, ok, we made it through this. We can do it.” The stuff that we say to one another on stage, or how we interact or what, and what songs we play or that sort of thing – that carries us through for a few months. What we learned playing every night at the Blue Note in that real close knit environment, it is completely different. When you’re playing right next to each other versus when you’re playing a huge stage and you’re spaced apart? That’s different. That’s more like a rock show kind of a thing, so it’s a really cool sensation to be able to do both.
That is very cool. Over the years there has been such an immaculate lineup of special guests who come up on stage at the Blue Note with you and your band. Now, I’m not gonna ask for any surprises or secrets that are under wraps about this year, but what do you like most of those moments?.
The ones that have got in the past and the ones that have shown up and bombed the stage with us often were John Mayer and Sting, of course. Those are the ones that kind of love the whole jam session there. There have been a lot of other singers that usually come and just watch, but out of the ones that actually participate, those are the two main ones that I remember and enjoy getting up and jamming.
That must be rewarding, too, to kind of change up your set that night in a way and do so maybe just for that audience.
Fun. It’s fun for the fans. I don’t know how many times Sting has done it, and he’s probably done it like 40 times, but we never announced him or anything. He’s just there like, “Alright, you ready? Yeah, let’s do it.” Then he walks up and people just lose their mind [Laughs]. It’s awesome.
It sounds awesome! During this time of year, too, which is all about bringing people together and finding that joy and hope and spirit of the season.
We do very, very, very little Christmas songs. I always felt like every single act is out doing a Christmas tour this time of year. I just want to make music and have fans come to a couple of things. I want the jazz fans to come and be like, “Let’s get down to business. Let’s, let’s play.” I think last year we did one Christmas song, and this year we might do one Christmas song, too, just to kind of get the audience in the mood, but everyone is just so psyched to be there for what we’re known for.
This year is the first year in the Blue Note’s history that we’re running an hour earlier, too, so the shows are 7:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.instead of 8:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., which is really good for me. You’re not quite out as late, so you can still get up and do your workouts and practice, so I think that that’s going to be kind of a cool thing.
Absolutely. We, as an audience, are going to go on this journey of jazz jamming and instrumentation, and we know you’re going to put that on for us. And, most importantly, you’re all going to be on stage enjoying yourselves.
Correct. You know, I’m very fortunate to be surrounded by incredible musicians. I’ve tried to make it a cornerstone of my show that all of these musicians that are in the band get seen. They all have really exceptional personalities. I hate going to concerts where all you’re focused on is the lead person. and then the people behind them face elsewhere. Sometimes, if you go to see some rock shows and stuff like that, the band members don’t even look at one another. They look down at their instruments and they’ve got their in-ear monitors in, so they’re all kind of separated. You don’t feel that sort of energy between the individual musicians and I think it makes for a little bit of a sterile feeling for the audience. That’s what so many people say to us, too, because we bring the audience in, basically. I mean, obviously that is done in an aural sense, but we bring them on stage as much as we can since we also visually want them to see what we’re reacting to and with. We just crash and burn right in front of the audience sometimes and it’s hilarious. It makes them feel part of something.
All of my players are so exciting to watch and to listen, too. For the special guests, we’re gonna have maybe four special guests, so there’s always something to try to make the show different than just walking out four musicians, me introducing everyone right at the top of the thing, and then starting to play jazz, which (for a lot of people) can get kind of academic. I try to remove as much as I can that and turn it into a show that is with super high end jazz musicians, but are influenced by more of the mainstream. I had years playing with Paul Simon, with Sting, with Joni Mitchell. I’ve been around enough popular music, even making some with David Foster, and enough popular musicians to kind of know what a show is like and can be like. I’ve also been around enough jazz musicians to sometimes know when the music’s going over everyone’s head [Laughs]. It’s all good, though. We make sure that everyone has their fun.
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