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 19^th, as part of the Berklee Jazz Ensemble, 10^th 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.” 

When she returns from her European tour during the later part of May, the gifted composer and arranger will be spending time in the studio working on The Green Factor. Always looking for new musical doors to poke her head into, Rovatti is preparing to unveil her Celtic jazz album. The CD, whose title was inspired by Rovatti’s concern for the environment and to pay tribute to the Irish, is scheduled for release this summer. Although she has been learning to play the bagpipes, Rovatti enlisted the services of Ivan Goff to perform on The Green Factor. Also appearing on the CD will be bassist Janek Gwizdala, violinist Christian Howes, drummer Obed Calvaire and on piano / keys, George Colligan.  It goes without saying, that Rovatti will be playing her tenor saxophone. During the month of April, the musicians gave the New York City crowd at the 55 Bar a foretaste of what they can expect to hear when The Green Factor is released.

Rovatti’s interest in Celtic music began approximately seven years ago when Randy Brecker was preparing for a gig in Cork Ireland. He asked her if she could write something with an Irish flavor.  Later she recorded the tune on one of her early CDs, and dubbed it “O’Cork, O’Mio.”  During the summer of 2007, she began to experiment with combining the violin with her tenor saxophone, and as she says, she had a blast. As her vision started to grow for Celtic jazz, she credits her husband Randy and his brother, the late Michael Brecker, with encouraging her.

When you hear the compassion and love in Ada Rovatti’s voice as she talks about teaching children music, within New York City’s public school system, you want to be in her cheering section. “When you see kids who come from (difficult) situations, you feel that you can give them a bright view of the future. They are really eager to learn. You give something, and you get a lot back. I feel that being a musician is also being a teacher. I have never thought about being a musician, without being a teacher,” she says. 

Interview by Joe Montague for Riveting Riffs (www.rivetingriffs.com) ©

May 2008

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