Podcast 801: A Conversation with Franco Ambrosetti

Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

“There’s a good trumpet player in George Gruntz’s band I heard at the Berlin Jazz Festival. He can play his ass off. If I was picking a trumpet player, I would pick him. He can play anything.” - Miles Davis, talking about Franco Ambrosetti in 1987.

The ageless Franco Ambrosetti has kept himself very busy the past few years. In 2019, he put together his dream band - John Scofield on guitar, Scott Colley on bass, Uri Caine on piano and Jack DeJohnette on drums - and recorded Long Waves, a wonderful mix of standards and originals. Franco enjoyed working with these masters so intensely that he brought them all back again last year when he wanted to record an all-ballads album. The result, Lost Within You, rivals any comparable release of the past decade or so for soul and sensitivity.

Ambrosetti recorded Lost Within You with three different piano players - Caine, Renee Rosnes, and in a rare appearance, DeJohnette as well. Again the album mixes standards like "Body and Soul," "People Time," and Horace Silver's "Peace" with originals.

For a band that has been deprived of the chance to tour extensively due to geography and prior commitments, the tightness of their sound and generous spirit within their solos is nothing short of wonderful. Ambrosetti plays mostly flugelhorn on the new record, a nod to his advancing age - he will turn 80 this December - but also to the mellow sound that he gets from his horn.

Podcast 801 kicks off the month of March with my conversation with Franco, as we talk about the two albums, his affinity for ballads, and what he has learned playing with his father and son. Musical selections include "You Taught My Heart to Sing" and the Borges-inspired "Dreams of a Butterfly from Lost Within You, and a terrific take of "On Green Dolphin Street" from Long Waves.