The man with the golden horn

Chris Botti missed the surprise ending for the White Sox in the second game of this year’s World Series in Chicago. He was so cold in the Windy City, he had to leave the game. You may have caught him earlier that night, however, when the jazz trumpeter stepped onto the diamond and played a passionate version of “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch.

“I loved the challenge,” said Botti in a phone call earlier this week back in Chicago, where he was on the “The Tony Danza Show.” “You throw yourself out into the cold in front of 100 million people and go for it. I’ve always liked the challenge of playing the trumpet. It keeps you honest. There’s a level of interpretation and a level of athleticism with the trumpet. And you can’t turn away from either. Even when you’re in 30-degree weather, you can’t chip a note.”

Botti (pronounced BOAT-ee) has been in the music scene for 20 years, often as sideman for the likes of Sting (“He’s my brother,” said Botti.), Bob Dylan (“Interesting.”), Aretha Franklin (“Legendary.”) and Frank Sinatra (“Interesting, legendary artist who is not my brother.”). He debuted as a solo artist in 1995 with the release of “First Wish.” Since then, he has toured extensively with his own band and released other recordings, including this year’s “To Love Again.” But the stage isn’t the only place he performs. In December, Botti will appear as a wedding guest on TV’s soap opera “The Young and the Restless,” and will offer more sultry tunes as a performer on “Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.”

Talk about a crossover artist. Botti, who will perform with his band at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20, at the Maine Center for the Arts, said that while singers and movie stars frequently make changes in their performance genres, the same fluidity is not so easy for instrumentalists.

That’s why TV is so appealing. It helps, too, that Botti has the kind of boyish good looks that inspire writers on a Web site forum to call him “Botti Hotti” and to swoon with Bottiology and claim they’ve been Bottified. “Jazz,” one young entry exclaimed, “is so SCENE.”

Botti doesn’t mind the teen audiences. Having performed on the same lineup as junior opera hunk Josh Groban (who coincidentally sang the national anthem at the first game of this year’s World Series), Botti knows that drawing youth audiences to his trumpet music is just as important as appealing to traditional jazz listeners.

Indeed, although he has no children of his own, the 43-year-old has unique insights into the pairing of music studies and young minds.

“Everyone wants kids to be musicians until the kids take it seriously,” said Botti, whose mother, a pianist, encouraged him to take music lessons when he was growing up in a college town in Oregon. “Then they end up saying, ‘Whoa! I was kidding! I really want you to become a doctor or a lawyer.’ My mom understood the nature of private lessons, that they give direction and allow the kid to follow music or to fail. I’m grateful for that.”

Clearly Botti didn’t fail. From his earliest aspirations when he was 9 and watching TV bandleader and trumpeter Doc Severinson on late-night TV’s “Tonight Show” until he discovered his idol Miles Davis, Botti has had one goal in mind: to play his trumpet smoothly and romantically.

Some jazz musicians are known for signature tunes. Others are known for styles. Botti likes that he fits into the latter.

“I’m not locked into a hit. Instead, people latch on to my aesthetic vibe,” said Botti, who plays a vintage Martin Handcraft Committee trumpet, the very kind Miles Davis used.

Then Botti was off. But not before extending an invitation to his Maine audience to stop in at the Wilshire Theater in Los Angeles on Dec. 1 and 2. He’ll be there filming his own special with six of the singers on “To Love Again” to air on PBS in March.

Chris Botti and his band will perform 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20, at the Maine Center for the Arts. For tickets, call 581-1755 or visit www.MaineCenterfortheArts.com.