Most sporting Cheshire grins, a sell-out crowd filed out of the Napa Valley Opera House Thursday night all abuzz over the splendid wine country debut of swing jazz vocalist Steve Tyrell.

Tyrell's more Sinatra than Sting, more Tin Pan Alley than Bourbon Street -- a singer with a bounce in his step, a beat up his sleeve and swing running through his veins.

His fans range from seniors who reveled in the big band era to young moderns in search of singers who do more than spit out unintelligible grunts and flash obscene hand gestures.

The majority of the Opera House audience Thursday night was indeed of a certain age and, judging by cheers and standing ovations, was more than thrilled that the singer included Napa Valley on a tour that will take him cross country, to London and then back to New York for a six week residence at the hallowed Cafe Carlyle through the end of the year.

A native of Texas, singer/composer/producer Tyrell cut his teeth in R&B bands before relocating to New York at age 18 and landing a staff position at Scepter Records. As the label's head of A&R and promotion, Tyrell championed the classic Burt Bacharach/Hal David-composed recordings of Dionne Warwick and also recruited singer B.J. Thomas, producing his hits, "Hooked on a Feeling" and "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head."

Subsequently, Tyrell made his mark as a songwriter, co-writing the chart-topping "How Do You Talk to an Angel" for the Heights as well as working on music for film ("Mystic Pizza," "Midnight Crossing" and "The Brady Bunch Movie," among others) and television.

As for producing, Tyrell has worked with such diverse artists as Bonnie Raitt, Blood Sweat and Tears, Linda Ronstadt, Woody Allen, Alice Cooper and LL Cool J, and even produced a Grammy-winning gospel album in 1998 for Andy Griffith.

A number of his fans were introduced to Tyrell via the movies, specifically, the 1991 Steve Martin hit "Father of the Bride," in which he appeared and performed "The Way You Look Tonight" on the soundtrack, and its 1995 sequel "Father of the Bride Part II," which contained his soundtrack recordings of "Give Me the Simple Life" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street."

This led to "A New Standard," Tyrell's aptly titled first album of standards, which was released on Atlantic in 1999. Peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard jazz chart, the album stayed there an incredible 84-week span and has since topped the Billboard Jazz catalog chart for another 100-plus weeks -- almost entirely due to word-of-mouth promotion by those lucky enough to discover it and then pass it on to friends. Last year, he released "Quite Frank: The Songs of Sinatra" on the Hollywood label.

The song list for his 90-minute Napa Valley Opera House triumph the other evening contained classics from George and Ira Gershwin ("I've Got a Crush on You"), Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh ("Witchcraft"), Duke Ellington ("Don't Get Around Much Anymore") and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart ("Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"), among others.

A champion of the great American songbook, Tyrell might not have the best voice in the business today, but his choice of arrangements, his phrasing, his style as well as his presentation make for memorable evenings in theater or cabaret.

Backed by a first-rate septet (pianist Quinn Johnson, keyboardist Jon Allen, trumpeter Lew Soloff, saxophonist Jeff Driskall, guitarist Steve Cotter, bassist Lyman Medeiros and drummer Kevin Winard) that really knows how to swing, the gravelly-voiced Tyrell breezed through a 20-song set list highlighted by a playful guitar-focused arrangement of Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To," a jazzy rendition of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" that featured one of the many torrid solos by exceptional trumpeter Lew Soloff, a dazzling Sinatra-styled arrangement by Quincy Jones of Bart Howard's "In Other Words (Fly Me to the Moon)," and a moony modern-day ballad of failed romance, Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself."

Genuinely warm and witty, Tyrell is a class act. His offerings are stylish and, well, just downright good. He sends everyone home in a great frame of mind, all glad they'd invested both time and money in a guy who gets such a bang out of entertaining us. Steve Tyrell and the great American songbook -- a winning combination.