Entertainment

FINELY BLOWN BRASS

CHRIS BOTTI

Blue Note, 131 W. Third St., between Sixth Avenue and MacDougal Street; (212) 475-8592. Shows at 8 and 10:30 p.m. through Sunday.

YOU could be stone deaf and still know that brass blower Chris Botti isn’t your typical jazz guy – he’s young, he’s handsome and, in a black leather jacket, he looks very hip.

And at the first of his 12 Blue Note shows (the series runs through Sunday), his trumpet work was also easy on ears more used to rock and pop than bop.

Botti’s music is a jazz mutant: There’s enough outside noodling to let you know he admires the late Miles Davis, but his music is paired with a contemporary aesthetic that lets him slip and slide with funk riffs and a driving rock attack.

Having cut his teeth on tours with Paul Simon, Natalie Merchant and, most notably, Sting, Botti is very comfortable in this stylistic no man’s land where the jam is king.

Botti seems to be able to do everything anyone can do with a trumpet, but he favors softer tones with lots of echo instead of the usual brassy blasts associated with the horn. That dream-like mellowness worked especially well for the romantic ballads that fueled this performance.

Among the standouts in his kill-us-softly set was “My One and Only Love.” Adding to the tune’s strength was pop vocalist Paula Cole who was urged from her table to join Botti and his four-piece band.

Botti’s willingness to share the stage is where he’s all jazz. Cole stayed on for a second song, “Good Morning Heartache,” and later in the set Blue Nile frontman Paul Buchanan brought Elvis’ “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” back to life.

Botti was equally generous with his band. Pianist Billy Childs soloed well and often, and drummer Billy Kilson nearly stole the night with a late-show drum solo in which he’d smash a tom-tom on one beat and gently ping a cymbal on the next. He was incredible.

And the bandleader was equally intense during his solos. Botti likes squeezing lots of notes into just a few bars. On some songs it sounded busy, and on others, like his encore of Sinatra’s saloon standard “One for My Baby,” his flash seemed subtler.

Botti is a skilled instrumentalist and an appealing performer. The audience at the Blue Note appreciated his easy banter as much as his improvisations. He told stories about the songs’ impact on his life, like how hearing Miles Davis play “My Funny Valentine” made him want to become a jazz trumpeter. He then did his own rendition of the song.

Lots of the tunes in Botti’s set were themed with lost love. Repeatedly describing them as “The bitch done me wrong” songs, however, was a mistake.

Because of his looks and romantic style, Botti has a major female following here, and they seemed to flinch each time he said it.

The leather jacket made him look edgy, the profanity made him sound crude. Here’s a word to the wise: Ditch “the bitch.”

dan.aquilante@nypost.com