After recording six acclaimed albums with bassist Joan Chamorro, Barcelona-based trumpeter, singer and composer Andrea Motis makes her solo debut on Impulse! Records with 'Emotional Dance'. The astonishing accord that she’s cultivated with Chamorro during the past seven years is firmly intact on 'Emotional Dance'. The sterling performances features him as well as pianist Ignasi Terraza, drummer Esteve Pi, guitarist Josep Traver as the core ensemble. Like with Chamorro, Motis has recorded and toured consistently with these musicians.
Chamorro coproduced Emotional Dance with Brian Bacchus and Jay Newland. Through Bacchus and Universal Records’ A&R director Jean-Philippe Allard’s sage suggestion, Motis augmented the personnel with a handful of U.S.-based musicians – vibraphonist Warren Wolf, accordionist Gil Goldstein, baritone saxophonist Scott Robinson, percussionist Café Da Silva. Three tunes also features the famed American tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm, who’d worked with Motis and Chamorro before. “We invited [Joel] to play with us in Barcelona in 2016. He was so amazing that we knew we wanted him for this album,” Motis enthuses.
Even though, Motis is only 21-years-old, she displays a mature musicality beyond her years. That’s because she began playing the trumpet at age seven; three years later she began studying jazz at the Municipal School of Music of Sant Andreu under Chamorro, who soon after recruited her for his band while she was still a teenager. While at the school, she was also a member of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band for nine years with which she recorded eight discs and played with such acclaimed musicians as trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, saxophonist Jesse Davis, clarinetist Bobby Gordon, and saxophonist Dick Oatts, among others. In addition to trumpet, Motis plays alto saxophone. But it was with Chamorro’s band that she began singing. “The trumpet will always be my first instrument,” Motis says when asked if she likes being a singer or an instrumentalist the most. “Playing the trumpet is like mediating; it’s such a part of my life. But I never want to choose just one side of my artistic sides because I love doing them all.”