Botti, band blow away pops concert audience

By Carl Hoover

Jazz trumpeter Chris Botti and his combo delivered a Valentine's Day concert that made more than a few hearts in the audience beat faster.

Their performance drove a pops concert with the Waco Symphony Orchestra held Tuesday at the Masonic Grand Lodge's beautiful, roomy auditorium.

Those attending got their money's worth: nearly two-and-a-half hours of smooth jazz, accented with sparkling individual solos and all tied by the suave Botti's fluid, resonant play.

The evening mixed jazz, pop, classical, film soundtrack and even tango — Miles Davis' "Flamenco Sketches," Burt Bacharach/Hal David's "The Look of Love," Chopin's "Prelude in C minor," Astor Piazzolla's "Oblivion," Michel Colombier's "Emmanuel," "When I Fall In Love," Puccini's "Nessun Dorma," "The Very Thought Of You," "My Funny Valentine" — though they often ended up in the same interpretative style.

Botti's trumpet work shimmered in long, sustained phrasing that often faded into echoes, the effect one would anticipate in a close jazz club or recording studio, but likely provided through the soundboard in the large Masonic auditorium.

His improvisations threw in the occasional flurry of fast valve work and stratospheric high notes to prove he had the technical goods, but his tone and phrasing hit, consistently, the emotional sweet spot of his music.

The show displayed his world-class combo: pianist Billy Childs, whose fine ear matched a fluid keyboard style; Uruguayan/Brazilian guitarist Leonardo Amuedo and his effortless virtuosity; bassist Robert Hurst, elegant support on both standup and electric bass; and drummer Billy Kilson, a dynamo on drums who turned in truly incendiary solos toward the close of the first and second halves.

Childs and Botti collaborated on a brilliant "My Funny Valentine," the second encore that closed the evening, and he pulled a six-year-old girl named Trinity from the audience to add a drum flourish ending the first encore, "Nessun Dorma."

Singer Lisa Fisher, a veteran vocalist who sang more than a decade with the Rolling Stones, displayed a silky, steely voice that matched Botti's trumpet tone on selections that included George Gershwin's "I Love You, Porgy," "The Look of Love" and a "Nessun Dorma" sung, remarkably, in its original male register.

Violinist Serena McKinney debuted with Botti's band in style, adding a flowing, sweet-singing touch, particularly on "Emmanuel."

Botti and his band, in fact, largely made the Waco Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Stephen Heyde, an extraneous presence. The combo's individual miking kept the symphony contributions, at least those heard through the sound system, to little more than background strings and an occasional horn chorus from a brass section seated off the main stage. Tuesday's audience didn't seem to mind.

Pops concerts often are a throw of the dice: some performers bring arrangements that give the talented Waco symphony a chance to flex its musical muscle; others have safe, simpler arrangements or dominant combo miking that minimize the risk of substandard orchestral play.

Tuesday's concert gave WSO patrons and jazz fans a rare opportunity to attend a concert in the spacious Masonic Grand Lodge, a lovely venue with ample seating in a semicircle around a central platform.

The lack of a backstage, however, forced artists to enter the stage through the audience and a smaller thrust stage caused relocation of brass players and tympani to rear loges flanking the strings.

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