Month: September 2009

A Palm Springs Jazz Wedding

The Event: A Sophisticated Old Hollywood Jazz Wedding
The Setting: A Gorgeous Mid-Century Moderne “Old Palm Springs” Hotel
The Theme: Beautifully Designed Poolside Wedding Reception Dinner
The Band: Judy Chamberlain Orchestras & Entertainment
The Vibe: Hip, Elegant Minimalism
First Dance: “Beyond The Sea”

What a wonderful wedding, and it certainly was beyond the sea — as far away from the sea as you can get and still be in California. Palm Springs is one of my very favorite California destination wedding locations, any time of year. For this, an early autumn wedding, the temperature was hot, the music was hotter — and the bride and groom and all of their guests were RED HOT!

We set up our instruments and sound equipment inside the enclosed bar (picture an indoor/outdoor pool house), with huge doors opening onto the pool. The bride and groom, wedding party and some of the guests were seated at a table that ran the length of the pool. Other tables were set up in the pool area, as were dessert stations later in the evening.

Guests ate, drank, roamed around and listened to the soft, hip, elegant and SWINGING music. We are geniuses at not being overly loud, which is an important thing to be able to do in order to comply with the strict noise ordinances in Palm Springs.

The lighting was spectacular. The videographers were flown in from Canada for the weekend. Another wonderful, A-Team wedding.

All weddings should be this lovely, easygoing and sophisticated.

Modern Vintage Swing for Jazz Weddings & Events

Nothing makes a wedding or event more fun than live music — especially when it’s jazz wedding or event music.

Jazz, swing and big band, Rat Pack — poolside in Palm Springs or in a ballroom in Pismo Beach — the best wedding music is rooted in a jazz sensibility. With overtones of midcentury, doo-wop, funk and soul, of course.

We’re not talking Miles Davis here, although we love Miles. He played a melody like nobody else.

Us, we never play anything the same way once. A room’s mood can change in the middle of a song.

Happy autumn!

September Song
Maxwell Anderson/Kurt Weill
1938

Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn’t got time for the waiting game.
Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I’ll spend with you
These precious days I’ll spend with you.

September Song, by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson
Kinckerbocker Holiday, 1938

A Live Soundtrack for Your Wedding or Event!

Music and the movies are a strong connection!

Casablanca…Three Coins In The Fountain…Animal House…

What would they have been witout exactly the right music popping up at exactly the right time?

In EXACTLY in the right spot….

And all of a sudden it’s 1944…or 1954…or 1962 and you are so there.

You can taste and feel every thing about that exact moment in time.

Even if you weren’t born until 1984.

Some smart “music supervisor” figured out how to transport you to another time and place.

That’s what we do.

Live, and hopefully at precisely the right moment.

We take you on a trip right into your own heart, inside your most meaningful thoughts, dreams and memories.

You could program your iPod, but you wouldn’t get the same results.

And I’ve yet to meet an iPod that can think things through “in-the-moment” the way a live band can.

Or a DJ, for that matter.

Big band, small band….there are plenty of options — and sometimes less is even more.

Timing, though, is everything.