To Love Again

1	Embraceable You 4:25
2	What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life? 5:05
3	My One and Only Love 5:41
4	Let There Be Love / Michael Bublé 3:12
5	What's New? 3:59
6	Good Morning Heartache / Jill Scott 6:13
7	To Love Again 4:38
8	Are You Lonesome Tonight? / Paul Buchanan 4:01
9	Lover Man 4:50
10	I'll Be Seeing You 4:18
11	Pennies from Heaven / Reneé Olstead 3:46
12	Here's That Rainy Day / Rosa Passos 5:07
13	Smile / Steven Tyler 4:22

Barnes & Noble

Not since, say, the glory days of Herb Alpert has a trumpeter made himself into a pop star, but lately Chris Botti has done a fine job of bringing quality jazz-tinged music to a wide public. Building on the fan base that he established with his orchestrated ballad album When I Fall in Love, Bottiti fills his new album's dance card with A-list singers, adding even greater accessibility to the vintage standards he embraces. Drawing on such lyrical past masters as Miles Davis and Chet Baker, Botti has fashioned an easy-on-the-ears horn style that rises far above any lite-jazz leanings. He holds his own on the four all-instrumental tracks, including lovely renditions of such favorites as "I'll Be Seeing You" and "What's New," his sensuous trumpet tone engulfing the listener with pleasure. Botti's unerring taste in vocalists, both contemporary (Michael Bublé, Jill Scott, Paula Cole, Paul Buchanan) and classic (Gladys Knight, Sting, Steve Tyler) ensures sterling interpretations of timeless material. Up-to-date in approach yet classic in manner, To Love Again sidesteps nostalgia while reminding us that everything old really is new again. William Pearl

All Music Guide

Trumpeter Chris Botti's To Love Again: The Duets picks up where his stellar 2004 release When I Fall in Love leaves off, with more gorgeously lush and heartfelt orchestral jazz via the London Session Orchestra. This time showcasing guest vocalists -- as well as a handful of instrumental tracks -- Botti takes an even more classicist approach than before and once again brings to mind such iconic jazz albums as Clifford Brown with Strings and Miles Davis' Porgy and Bess. Largely known as a smooth jazz artist with a sweet trumpet tone, it wasn't until When I Fall in Love that Botti dropped the smooth jazz synthesizers and pop-oriented compositions in favor of Gil Evans-style jazz orchestrations and an acoustic backing quartet. Subsequently, Botti made the best album of his career and didn't sacrifice any of his own laid-back smooth jazz style. In fact, having long been compared to trumpeters Chet Baker and Miles Davis for both his minimalist improvisational style and matinee idol image, this move toward more straight-ahead jazz is actually a better fit. To Love Again does nothing if not reinforce this opinion and finds Botti seeming even more relaxed and in his element. This is no more true than on the romantically melancholy lead-off track "Embraceable You," which finds Botti's horn weeping and sighing over the George Gershwin standard. The same can be said of his work with Sting on the '60s classic "What Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life." In fact, with such a phenomenal cadre of singers -- including Michael Bublé, Paula Cole, Gladys Knight and others performing such standards as "Let There Be Love" and "Lover Man" -- there really isn't a bad track. Part of the brilliance of the album is that, while it is classicist in tone, many of the vocalists come from the pop world and give the songs a contemporary spin that rubs nicely against Gil Goldstein and Jeremy Lubbock's stylishly old-school arrangements. It also doesn't hurt that Botti is working with such phenomenal jazz talents as pianist Billy Childs, bassists Robert Hurst and Christian McBride, drummer Billy Kilson, guitarist Anthony Wilson and others. That alone makes the few instrumental tracks on To Love Again some of the standout moments on an album as much about vocals as it is about Botti's own creative "voice." Matt Collar