Chris Botti - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

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Close your eyes during a Chris Botti solo and you could swear you are in a Manhattan jazz club at one in the morning, except the air smells like crushed grapes and the ceiling is the actual sky. Botti is the best-selling American instrumental artist of his generation, a Grammy winner who spent years playing trumpet behind Sting before his own name got that big, and his tone does something specific to a room. People who announce that they do not like jazz go quiet mid-sentence. He plays Thornton's terrace on the first Saturday of October, the vineyard already turning toward harvest, the estate sparkling wine poured through dinner service. Of all fourteen nights in this series, the regulars circle his first. Twenty minutes up the freeway and you are as close to a great concert hall as this valley gets. Buy the seat now and thank yourself in autumn, sitting next to whoever you would most want there.