Track Listing

1. Embraceable You
2. What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life? - Featuring Sting
3. My One And Only Love - Featuring Paula Cole
4. Let There Be Love - Featuring Michael Bublé
5. What's New?
6. Good Morning Heartache - Featuring Jill Scott
7. To Love Again
8. Are You Lonesome Tonight? - Featuring Paul Buchanan
9. Lover Man - Featuring Gladys Knight
10. I'll Be Seeing You - Featuring Billy Childs
11. Pennies From Heaven - Featuring Renee Olstead
12. Here's That Rainy Day - Featuring Rosa Passos
13. Smile - Featuring Steven Tyler

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3561 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2005-10-18
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Amazon.com
Somewhere, Kenny G is hiding behind his cascading ringlets in shame. Chris Botti, a jazz world super-talent whose trumpeting earns frequent comparisons to Miles Davis and Chet Baker, has found the formula for classing up the pop charts, and within it there's not a single soaring sax or tired attempt at career revivalism to be found. What we're treated to instead is an all-star lineup (Sting, Gladys Knight, Michael Buble and others) vocally saluting a musician whose resume reads like a page torn out of the Rock Snob's Dictionary: in addition to touring with Sting, Botti has played sideman to Paul Simon, Natalie Merchant, Joni Mitchell, and dozens more. Here that experience pays off handsomely. Gone are the matinee-idol smooth artist's earlier experiments with jazz synthesizers and pop-fusion compositions (see 2002's Night Sessions for those), and present in their place are his classical instincts. Gil Evans might have been his guide as the unmistakable opener "Embraceable You," one of a handful of instrumental tracks, swirls into the enchanting, ultra-sophisticated "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life," for instance, and listeners need not feel like fogies for loving it. If Steven Tyler can sign on to sing along with a traditional arrangement of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" while the London Session Orchestra lays down its trademark jazz lushness behind him, after all, you can let down your guard long enough to admit this disc leaves you feeling vaguely dreamy. --Tammy La Gorce

Customer Reviews

Awesome!!
Only recently have I discovered the beautiful music of Chris Botti. Now, I have to find all of the older cds. To Love Again is an awesome cd. What stands out is, of course, the beautiful sounds this man can get out of a horn.
There are a couple of tracks that have quickly become favorites. First, is Michael Buble's, Let There Be Love. This man has a absolutely wonderful voice. Then, there is What Are You Doing The Rest of My Life with Sting. Wonderful.
If you love beautiful music played in that smooth style of pop and jazz, you have to get this one. I know I will be listening to it for a long time.

Brilliant album -- I'd give it 10 stars if I could!
To Love Again is Botti's follow-up to last year's collection of romantic standards, When I Fall In Love. That album was primarily a collection of lushly orchestrated instrumentals that showcased Botti's breathtaking skill with the trumpet, supplemented by select duets with Paula Cole and Sting. In contrast, To Love Again features vocalists from across the musical spectrum duetting with Botti on nine of the disc's thirteen tracks. My favorite duet tracks include Michael Buble' singing "Let There Be Love" and Renee Olstead singing "Pennies from Heaven." The arrangements of both songs positively sparkle and give Botti a chance to really cut loose and swing with his trumpet. Botti's trumpet playing is often likened to Chet Baker's mellow sounds, but on these tracks I found the collaborations reminiscent of the type of recording Harry James and Tommy Dorsey used to do with their bands...the vocalists (stars in their own rights) complemented the music, and vice-versa. Olstead's performance is particularly noteworthy...her outstanding vocal skill has grown by leaps and bounds since the release of her self-titled jazz album last year. Each of the duets on this disc are perfect examples of an ideal give-and-take relationship between the vocal and the trumpet...one never seeks to overwhelm the other, which makes the listening experience absolutely intoxicating (some of Sinatra's concept albums that he recorded for Capitol Records - particularly ones arranged by Nelson Riddle - are excellent examples of this effect). To Love Again is a brilliantly executed album and I cannot wait to see the artistic heights Chris Botti takes his listeners to with his next offering!

Hauntingly Beautiful!
Chris Botti, a trumpeter-extraordinaire, has done it again after the success of "When I Fall In Love," my top favorite of all his albums, which charted #4 on Billboard Top 25 Albums when it was released. "To Love Again" is nothing but one of the best recordings of all-time and features Mr. Botti's thirteen attention-grabbing performances with his guest artists - Sting, Michael Bublé, Paula Cole, Gladys Knight, Jill Scott, Paul Buchanan, Renee Olstead, Rosa Passos and Steven Tyler, with the London Session Orchestra conducted by Jeremy Lubbock, Billy Childs and Gil Goldstein.

His very latest offering Italia (CD/DVD digipak Fan Pack) is also making waves at the jazz scene today. Please check it out, and I guarantee you will have an exquisite listening experience. It is dramatically and irresistibly beautiful and romantic!

Chris Botti's most impressive trumpet virtuosity can be heard in his spellbinding renditions of all-instrumental-tracks from the repertoire: George and Ira Gershwin's "Embraceable You," the title track "To Love Again," "I'll Be Seeing You," which features Billy Childs on piano, and "What's New?" These beautiful works of art call for your welcoming ears and undivided attention to perfectly capture their charms!

Paula Cole, a Grammy awardee for the Best New Artist in 1998, steals the limelight with her emotionally-charged and superb vocals on "My One And Only Love," making it my new favorite version of this great song arranged by one of my favorite arrangers of all-time, Jeremy Lubbock. Sting shines with his outstanding rendition of one of the most beautiful compositions of the Bergmans and Legrand, "What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?" His vocal artistry is just impeccable. I remember going round the bend over his version of "My One And Only Love" some years ago. It is still one of the most beautiful versions ever recorded.

Never to be outshined is Michael Bublé's refreshing take on "Let There Be Love," with fabulous arrangements by Gil Goldstein. Paul Buchanan's version of Elvis Presley's signature song "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" is so moving . . .

"Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memory stray to a bright summer day?
. . . Is your heart filled with pain?"

On "Good Morning Heartache," Jill Scott is trying hard to make "heartache go away, get a job and leave her alone!" Gladys Knight sings "Lover Man" soulfully and coming from the heart.

The rest of the tracks are remarkable renditions of "Pennies From Heaven" by Renee Olstead, "Here's That Rainy Day" by Rosa Passos, and Steven Tyler's most heartfelt and moving treatment of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," one of the most beautiful and uplifting songs of all-time.

"Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky you'll get by
If you smile through your fears and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear maybe ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you'll . . . just smile"

This is truly one of my favorite works of art - it's hauntingly beautiful!

Thank you so much, Mr. Botti, for sharing your outstanding gift of music to the world. You are simply one of the best things that ever happened to jazz music!

Deserves my highest recommendation.

* * * * * TEN STARS * * * * *