Chris Botti tours China after first new album in a decade

To remain at the top of his game, Botti practices for at least three hours a day.

"The trumpet doesn't care how successful you are. It will shut you down, and age will lessen the elasticity of your sound or the way your muscles work. I have to practice every day," he says.

Another thing that helps his trumpet skills is car racing, which he calls "a pretty intense addition".

Botti says that learning to drive a sports car is similar to learning to play an instrument. Both are about muscle memory and taking in lots of information. He raced for about a year.

"I used car racing as an addendum to my trumpet playing, and it kept me firing," he says.

In 2022, Botti turned 60, which he says felt like "a time that seemed like a restart for so many things in the world".

"I wanted to strip away all the orchestral arrangements and focus more on my playing, the playing of my band, and these jazz classics that we love playing onstage," he says, adding that he hopes to have his new albums, Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 out soon.