It is safe to say that trumpeter and former "Wayne Brady Show" bandleader Chris Botti [ tickets ] is excited about his new DVD and PBS special, "Chris Botti Live with Orchestra and Special Guests."

"It was the single greatest musical moment of my life," he said about the concerts, filmed last December at Los Angeles' Wilshire Theatre. "It's my band with a 40-piece orchestra and six or seven of the singers from the new CD ['To Love Again']--Sting, Gladys Knight, Jill Scott. Everyone came from all over the world--Paula Cole, Paul Buchanan.

"Burt Bacharach was there, as well, performing. It was really, really a fun night. When you have a night like that and it's captured with incredible video and audio, at the end of my career, I'll at least have that," he added with a laugh.

The year 2005 proved to be a successful one for Botti. Besides filming the DVD/PBS special, his album "To Love Again" proved one of the top-selling jazz albums of the year.

LiveDaily: How did you go about choosing which songs you were going to record for the DVD and PBS special?

I'm very, very particular about the material that I do--with the one exception. Sting chose a song called "What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" That was his choice. In fact, there's a very funny story behind it. The song is very, very deceptively difficult. It's a very, very difficult song to sing. [Botti sings in an off-key voice.] "What are you doing ... " I can't even sing it and I'm a trained musician. I was joking with that voice. [Laughs] It's a very tricky interval. It takes an amazingly accurate singer to sing that song. I asked him afterward, "Why did you chose that song?" He said a fan, some woman, stopped him on Fifth Avenue in New York and said, "Hey Sting, you ought to record this song 'What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?'" He said OK, and we recorded it. Literally, that's how random it was. I said in the TV special, "If you're that fan, thank you for stopping him.” Fans never know what kind of impact they have on musicians. A lot of times, they think they mention something to someone and there's no way they would take my advice. But all the other material, I chose for everyone and tried to make it, like, stylized to fit the arc of their different voices. There's so many different voices, and so many different kinds of approaches to the music. I tried to make it appropriate to each person.

That must have been a difficult task. There's so many songs out there.

It was incredibly fun. All the people were so into the project, so it wasn't difficult at all. We were really, really fortunate in that way and everyone was so enthusiastic and into it.

Is there anything in particular you look for in a song?

It's not any one particular thing. The song needs to resonate and feel like there's a home for it in my life. Sometimes there are incredible songs and they just don't fit well on the trumpet. They just don't feel graceful, even though they're beautiful songs. They don't feel home. They don't feel quite centered in the middle of the song. I keep rifling through different songs, and finding the ones that fit really nicely on the trumpet and the intervals are really flattering to the trumpet. It's not just about singing another song. For instance, The Beatles song "All You Need is Love" is a great song, but would suck on the trumpet. [Mocks a trumpet playing "All You Need is Love."] It's not that flattering on the trumpet. That's an extreme example. I kind of make sure it feels really great on the trumpet first, and then we kind of stylized all the singing stuff around it.

You recorded again with the London Symphony Orchestra. Have you established a strong rapport with them?

I just had such a great experience and would continue to go back there often. That studio, its warmth, gives my trumpet the real beautiful, flattering sound. That room is really why we went there--and, on top of it, the incredible musicians. Primarily, we went there originally because that's probably, for natural instruments, one of the most flattering studios in the world.

Which studio was it?

Air Studios. It's owned by George Martin, who produced The Beatles. It's very, very legendary. [It's] a big, huge, massive church that they renovated into a studio. You can imagine playing a trumpet, and those violins and the beautiful high-ceiling church. Everything is so, so, so incredible in there.

How did you choose the singers you wanted to work with on "To Love Again"?

I've worked with all those singers before. [Aerosmith's] Steven Tyler I know very, very well socially. We have a mutual friend. He was actually getting on an amusement park ride with his family when I got a hold of him on his cell phone. I said, "Hey Steven, would you like to sing [Charlie Chaplin's] 'Smile'"? [Imitating Tyler:] "Yeah, right on, dude. Love to. That would be great." He's so up and positive. I didn't really know he would still want to do it six months later when we actually had the track. He's so positive but sometimes scheduling doesn't work out. He's an example of the great kind of enthusiasm from the singers. Everyone else on the record I worked with before. I recorded with Gladys Knight on one of her albums in, like, 1990. Paula Cole, obviously, she's guested on my stuff in the past, on "When I Fall in Love." Paul Buchanan from the Blue Nile I've worked with many years, and am such a fan of theirs. Sting, I've worked with forever. [Michael] Buble and Renee Olstead, we swapped out. He sang on my album and I played on his, and the same with Renee. Jill Scott was the opening act for Sting when I was in Sting's band years ago. We became friendly. The only person I didn't know--that I was a fan of but never met her or worked with her at all--was Rosa Passos. She's so fantastic. We sent the track to her in Brazil and she recorded there. I never had a meeting with her, unfortunately.

How did you meet Sting?

He does an annual event called the Rainforest Benefit in New York. There was a mutual friend that they had recommended I hook up and do a duet. We met and became friendly. He's really, really been responsible for my career in so many ways. Certainly making me cross over from a jazz musician to pop musician to that kind of record sales is in large part due to his aid, basically.

Logistically, you can't bring all the guest singers with you on tour. How do you go about performing the songs live?

We bring along a singer named Jeanne Jolly, who's from Los Angeles. She's kind of new. She's a great singer. We do two to three songs from the record. When we play live, I'm really incredibly proud of my band. I've gone through many different versions of a band. Finally, now I'm to the point I think I feel quite strong in saying I have the best band out there. It's so, so thrilling to be on the stage with quite possibly the most famous jazz pianist in the world--outside of Herbie Hancock. [Keyboardist] Billy Childs is now in my band. Marc Whitfield, who's like an amazing guitar player and has tons of records out on Verve under his own name, is now in my band. Billy Kilson, the legendary jazz drummer, is now in my band as well. I have all these guys who in their own right are solo artists that have teamed up to be in this, kind of like, super band. The greatest payback for success is to be able to have this kind of musicianship nightly on stage. We really push the envelope on each other.