The Napa Valley Symphony Orchestra joined the big leagues last Saturday night.

Wine country’s first-class orchestra teamed up with jazz trumpet heartthrob Chris Botti for a Pops Concert that, for once, was geared for Pops Concert devotees who venture beyond Music 101.

To start, Maestro Asher Raboy served up film music from composers Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini and Nino Rota — offering both familiar and unfamiliar compositions that weren’t the usual Pops pap.

And the evening’s headliner is just that — a musician who’s riding the top of the charts with a new recording — a fair-haired jazzman who’s the talk of the town, rather than artists celebrating past glories (which had been the case with NVSO events in recent years).

It was Chris Botti’s second wine country appearance. He’d played a jazz date at the Robert Mondavi Summer Music Festival in 2003 on a triple bill with Norman Brown and Brian Culbertson.

With three best-selling recordings in as many years under his belt, Botti drew on those and more for his 80-minute stint with our local orchestra.

At present, the accomplished trumpeter is showcasing his own brand of musical melancholy, arranging songs from the great American songbook that tug on the heartstrings or, at least, bring to mind pleasant memories — maybe even a few tinged with a degree of sadness.

Some call Botti’s music contemporary jazz lite. Obviously, they haven’t experienced Botti live, where we enjoyed an approach reminiscent of trumpet legend Chet Baker commingled with improvisational brilliance.

His latest recording, “Italia,” mixes familiar opera with new material arranged for string accompaniment. So it was most appropriate to have Raboy and company providing the lush backdrop for a haunting piece titled “Caruso,” a thought-provoking movie melody from Oscar-winning Italian composer Ennio Morricone (“Gabriel’s Oboe” from “The Mission”) and the landmark “Flamenco Sketches” by trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Bill Evans from one of the best-selling jazz recordings of all time, Davis’ 1959 triumph, “Kind of Blue.”

But the evening wasn’t all warm and fuzzy. For example, when Botti sweetly introduced the title track of his 2004 CD, “When I Fall In Love,” who knew that it would evolve into straight-ahead smashmouth jazz, with Botti serving up hot improvisational licks, a sassy piano solo from Peter Martin and a wild percussion breakout from torrid drummer Billy Kilson (a longtime Botti associate).

Featured vocalist Sy Smith — who just happens to be sensational guitarist Marc Whitfield’s cousin — won us over with a lilting rendition of the Burt Bacharach hit, “The Look of Love,” one of three numbers on the program coming from Botti’s 2003 recording, “Thousand Kisses Deep.”

And then she wrapped her lovely burnished voice around Irving Berlin’s dreamy lyrics and melody “What’ll I Do?,” stepping aside for more improvisational interplay from Botti and drummer Kilson. Botti displayed additional cinematic nuance with the love theme from Ennio Morricone’s “Cinema Paradiso” and raised gooseflesh with the encore, the ultimate saloon song, “One For My Baby,” a rendition that would have made Ol’ Blue Eyes stand up and, well, sing.

It was a grand concert, one in which the audience could tell the visitors (including hard-working bassist Bob Hurst) were genuinely glad to be in wine country. Given the smiles all ’round, Raboy and company enjoyed the time spent with Botti and his sidekicks. And Botti was certainly accommodating, not only providing concertgoers with a brilliant set but also sticking around in the foyer to shake hands, pose for photos, chat and autograph copies of his new CD. A real gentleman, a real talent.

If this is the caliber of talent now in the symphony’s crosshairs, I would expect to see the sold-out shingle on the Lincoln Theater entrance more often.