Julie and I had 9th row center tickets for Chris Botti tonight. It was a great show. I can't believe he would play such a small venue. The Port Theater holds 850 people of which only 350 seats were sold (sadly it's a redneck town for the most part).
Rest assured he will never play here again as they had to have lost money.
His band is so tight.....Billy Killson is one tasty drummer having his own signature style. Bill Child's was on keyboards and it's easy to see why he has won a Grammy for best jazz pianist. Initially I was disappointed that Anthony Wilson was not playing guitar but was blown away by Mark Whitfield who is now a permanent fixture in the band. The Bass player was a fill in and did a great job, don't recall his name though, sorry.
The mix was so so but Chris's horn was sweet. A compression driver got fried during the encore and sounded pretty awful for 30 seconds. They quickly shut it off.
He played a great cross section of Miles Davis, Leonard Cohen, Count Basie etc etc.
PS: When was the last time you left a concert and had the main act standing at the exit thanking you for coming. I kid you not, the whole band was at the main exit signing autographs and shaking hands.
A great Jazz night.