One of America’s newest citizens, the gifted tenor saxophonist and composer, Ada Rovatti, took time out from her busy touring, recording and teaching schedules to talk to Riveting Riffs about her new studio project The Green Factor, her career, and her marriage to legendary trumpeter / flugelhorn player Randy Brecker. Rovatti, who originally hails from Milan, in northern Italy, first moved to the United States when she was twenty-one years of age, after winning a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston. She spent the next three years in her words, “running back and forth between Italy and Boston,” while working in Italian television. After spending one year in Paris, Rovatti finally settled in New York City in 1997. Earlier this year she received her American citizenship papers.
It is perhaps her genuine expression for caring about people that more than anything else endears Ada Rovatti to you. Whether she is talking about the children whom she teaches, her hubby Randy Brecker, or other artists she is always grateful and respectful. Rovatti possesses both a keen interest in, and a respect for, how other cultures reinterpret jazz music. She recalled her recent performance in Turkey, where she was impressed with how the musicians in that country infuse their jazz music with their own cultural heritage.
Rovatti who is a strong advocate for women in music points to the accomplishments of others, as an inspiration for both her life and career. In particular, she noted three artists, one of whom is Melissa Aldana, a native of Santiago Chile. Aldana performed at New York City’s Blue Note on May 19th, as part of the Berklee Jazz Ensemble, 10th Anniversary Band. Another source of inspiration is the Egyptian born Alexandra Grimal, who first took up the saxophone at age fifteen, while living in Paris France, and who possesses a musical resume that would be the envy of most musicians. The third artist that Rovatti called to the attention of Riveting Riffs is fellow Italian Daniela Schaechter. Schaechter, who also attended Berklee, is a gifted pianist. You will not have to listen to Schaecter’s music for very long, before you understand why Rovatti raves about her playing.
Rovatti is not content to be just another clone in the world of jazz, and she is continually in search of new ways to give her music a unique voice. “The fact that I am (also) a piano player helps me a lot, because I can hear the bass and the harmony. "I know this may sound bizarre, but sometimes I randomly put my hands on the piano and i move around fingers until I reach an interesting sonority.. I am really challenged by the voicing of the chords more of the chords and analysis of the chord in itself. When I get stuck in some point of the composition routine doing like that helps to hear differently and suddenly it opens like a door." I guess because I am a saxophone player and it is a B Flat instrument, I have never written anything that wasn’t good for the registry of the horn. Although I write on the piano, there is always in the back of my mind a very good register. I write melodies that are good on B Flat instruments.”
“When I write, I try to do things in a way that people don’t expect. When you hear certain chords, you expect that they are going to go in different sections, but I always try to put a twist in, and to go where people don’t think that I will go. This is a way that I can keep my interest up. (Sometimes), I will change the key or use an odd time signature. Most of my tunes have pretty melodies so that you can remember some part of the song. I don’t want to write music that only I understand and nobody else does. What’s the point? We are still entertainers. A lot of people forget that. If we just do music (just) for ourselves we should just close ourselves in a room,” she says.
Rovatti’s creativity shines through with her new arrangement for Harold Arlen’s “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” which appears on The Green Factor. French diva Anne Ducros recorded Rovatti’s arrangement for “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” on her new CD Urban Tribe, an album on which Rovatti plays her tenor sax. The album also features contrabassist Essiet Okon Essiet, drummer Bruce Cox and pianist Olivier Hutman.
Talking about her recording session with Ducros, Rovatti says, “I remember when we did the rehearsal, she never listened to my arrangement. I gave her the charts and she started to improvise as though she were an instrumentalist. She just blew me away. She had never listened to the tune.”
