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

May 2008

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