Chante Moore, Jackiem Joyner & Althea Rene - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

By the second glass the sun is gone, the vineyard has flattened into silhouette, and then a voice starts and the whole terrace stops talking at once. Chante Moore has spent thirty years making rooms do that. Chante's Got a Man was inescapable, but it is the live control of her voice, the thing recordings only approximate, that keeps people driving out to a hillside to hear it. She shares this bill with saxophonist Jackiem Joyner and flutist Althea Rene, whose instrument is rare enough in this scene that she quietly steals more of the evening than anyone expects walking in. Thornton pours its estate sparkling wine, the kitchen runs dinner service on the terrace, and the Temecula hills handle the lighting for free. It is a grown-folks evening in the best sense of that phrase, close enough to home that nobody has to make a weekend of it. Come for the R&B and leave having found a flute player whose name you look up before you even start the car.