Over the next two months, Chris Botti will blow through dates in Poland, Mexico, the U.K., much of Canada, and a smattering of American states that aren’t remotely near each other.

“The real killer is that we only have three shows in April, in Ottawa,” says the trumpet star, calling from a hotel room in Toronto. “Then we go to China in May. And Texas.”

The 310 prefix on his cellphone number makes me wonder if Botti is living in Los Angeles, but the question just gets a laugh. “I don’t have a residence,” he says. “No pets, plants, or possessions. Seriously. I’m a homeless jazz musician who is totally insane.”

The insanity, he explains, started about a dozen years ago when he made his trumpet chops available to pop performers who wanted to expand their orchestral range with more of a jazzy feel. Tours with Paul Simon led to travels with Joni Mitchell, and a long tour of duty with Sting’s band. That led the sometime Policeman to suggest that Botti put his own combo together.

Best-selling albums followed, leading to his already platinum-moving Italia, a jazz-and-classical pastiche that celebrates the handsome 45-year-old’s Euro heritage with help from Andrea Bocelli and, of all people, the ghost of Dean Martin. In Vancouver, Botti will eschew strings and horns, and perform tunes from Italia and elsewhere with his straight-ahead quintet, featuring phenomenal pianist Billy Childs.

“This kind of good fortune doesn’t happen to instrumental musicians very often,” Botti says. “When it does, you have to just go with it. The best thing about this rare kind of success is the level of band I am able to put together and keep on the road. The ability to do this for such sustained periods makes me feel incredibly lucky—just very sleep deprived.”

Botti says he won’t slow his pace until demand slackens or other interests pull at him. In January, he and his band put in a two-week residence at San Francisco’s intimate jazz club Yoshi’s, where he was able to draw more deeply on an improvisational career that kicked off with grants he won in the mid 1980s. That windfall enabled him to move from Portland, Oregon, to New York City, where he studied with saxophonist George Coleman and late trumpet great Woody Shaw.

The stage, then, is where Botti gets back to his roots. So far, his record label, Sony Music, has been hands-off as far as musical directions go, although he does worry about putting the spontaneity back in the grooves.

“In a way, I guess I’ve painted myself into a corner with Italia, the most conceptual, least-improvisational thing I’ve done to date. It’s selling better than anything else I’ve done, so just on a mathematical level, the record company may be wanting more of that. But how can I do that?”

Before he thinks about his next record, of course, he’ll need to worry about flying directly from Dallas to Taipei. Then, maybe he can get a cat.

Chris Botti plays the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts on Friday (February 29).