Nora Lakh

In a career spanning six decades and nearly 40 albums as a leader or co-leader, revered Swiss trumpeter Franco Ambrosetti has finally realized his dream project. Anchored by a core of world-class musicians (guitarist John Scofield, bassist Scott Colley, pianist Uri Caine, drummer Peter Erskine) and featuring a 22-piece string orchestra conducted by Grammy-winning pianist-arranger Alan Broadbent, Ambrosetti's Nora is his answer to Charlie Parker with Strings and Clifford Brown with Strings, both cherished albums from his youth.

We recorded this album while I was eight months pregnant with our daughter Annabell. As I write this she is two weeks away from her first birthday, and I have enough distance to offer some reflections. Control is something that I have always relished and sought, but the making of this album was a different experience for me. Now I feel as if the process of recording this album was practice for relinquishing control, something I am more adept at now that I am a mother. In the studio, I trusted my bandmates, who are my best friends, our truly gifted producer Neilson Hubbard, and myself. I trusted each person and the process. I believed that we each individually were enough and that together we were more than that. Thank you Josh, Drew, Brian, Neilson, and of course, my partner in all things, Joe, for sharing so much time with me, for allowing me to be myself, and helping me cultivate the best version of it. It’s an honor to make music with you and I’m so happy that we have a record of it.