Champagne Meets Jazz at California's Thornton Winery

[Rick Grandi]

To many hundreds of fans of jazz and wine the “Champagne Concert Series” at Thornton Winery in Temecula, CA needs no introduction. Now celebrating its 30th season, it has become one of the premier entertainment event series in Southern California. This year’s lineup, now underway through includes some of the best known headliners of the Contemporary Jazz world such as George Benson, Chris Botti, Kenny G, Dave Koz, & Peter White. And that’s just a few of the big names!

This past Sunday’s double bill featured two three superstars of contemporary jazz: guitarist Lee Ritenour with pianist Dave Grusin, and bassist Nathan East fronting has own band. Lee Ritenour is of course one of the best known guitarists in the jazz world, and Dave Grusin is a legend in film scores as well as jazz. Nathan East, while not nearly as well known, is a virtuoso in his own right and has a resume second to none. Between just Lee and Nathan, they have over 5,000 recordings to their names. Nathan East is probably best known as bassist for the superstar group Fourplay, but less well known may be his performances and recordings with the likes of Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Phil Collins. He’s also a graduate of University of California San Diego, giving him the “local fave” vibe. The Thornton performance venue is a beautiful and intimate outdoor space overlooking the vineyards. It is just a great place to see a show either day or night. Their Sunday shows started at 4 pm, and had a cool and casual vibe all their own, even under a warm wine country sun. To see TWO musicians of this caliber, with their outstanding backup bands, was a real treat.

Nathan East and his band opened with the unusual lineup of East playing a six-string bass and his brother playing five-string bass. THAT is unusual, but of course it worked brilliantly. The crowd was familiar enough with Nathan’s work to actually sing along, with the help of his scat singing, and his top flight backup band was flawless. One of the surprise highlights of the set was East’s son Noah guest appearing on piano, playing the classic Sunny Side of the Street. Another guest artist was saxophonist Clarice Johnson featured on the Stevie Wonder hit Higher Ground. East closed his set with an emotionally moving bass solo version of America the Beautiful, which of course brought the crowd to their feet and tears to their eyes.

Then it was time for Lee Ritenour, who has played this venue many times over the last several years. (in fact, Lee was the very first artist I had the pleasure of seeing at Thornton.) But this show was extraordinarily special because it featured his 83-year-old friend and mentor Dave Grusin on piano and keyboards, AND his 23-year-old son Wesley on drums. Three generations of fantastic players on one stage! You may ask how an octogenarian gets the keyboard gig with Lee Ritenour. But Grusin is not only known for 50 years of film score work, but also co-founded GRP Records where Lee Ritenour flourished in the 80’s and 90’s. The show started with The Village, one of the best tracks from Lee’s Rhythm Sessions album. This segued immediately into Harlequin from Rit’s 1985 breakthrough album. Next was Stoneflower from the iconic Twist of Jobim, with a long, brilliant jam. That was followed by Wes Bound, the title track of Lee’s best selling album. The band then surprised the crowd with a tender, understated version of the jazz classic Stolen Moments, setting up a truly stunning Grusin solo performance of the theme from the movie Random Hearts. All time fave Rio Funk finished out the set. You couldn’t help but feel blessed to see this group in an intimate setting like this, when they had just played the Playboy Jazz Festival at the 20,000 seat Hollywood Bowl the day before!

This piece is a little long on music commentary, and short on mentioning Thornton’s exceptional wines. But we tried two fine white varietals, and two outstanding sparkling wines to pair with our cheese plate and chicken wraps. Need I say more?

The Thornton “Champagne Concert Series” continues today with Average White Band and the Family Stone, following by Keiko Matsui and Acoustic Alchemy on June 23rd ,with other tremendous artists weekly through mid-October. Find the entire lineup here: https://www.thorntonwine.com/champagne-jazz-series/artist-line-up-a...