Swiss Trumpet Legend Franco Ambrosetti With New Album Of Ballads

The album “Sweet Caress” was arranged by Alan Broadbent with Peter Erskine on drums and John Scofield on guitar.

A companion piece to Franco Ambrosetti’s previous strings collaboration with pianist-arranger Alan Broadbent on 2022’s Nora, the sublime ballads album Sweet Caress finds the Swiss trumpet legend addressing such jazz classics as Mal Waldron’s “Soul Eyes,” Charlie Haden’s “Nightfall,” Les Alrich’s melodic and mellow “Old Friends” and J. Russel Robinson’s “Portrait of Jennie,” a tune originally written for a 1948 movie of the same name and which became a hit song later that year for Nat King Cole before being covered by J.J. Johnson, George Shearing, Blue Mitchell, Red Garland, Oscar Peterson and Wes Montgomery. It was even included on Clifford Brown with Strings, the 1955 album that ignited Ambrosetti’s youthful ambition to pursue jazz.

Backed by an all-star core group consisting of pianist Broadbent, guitarist John Scofield, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Peter Erskine, augmented by a 29-piece orchestra arranged and conducted by Broadbent, Ambrosetti pulls heartstrings on a winning program that includes four Franco originals in the alluring “Habanera,” his sparkling “Colors of the Wind,” the tender “When the Sun Never Sets” and the beguiling title track.

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