Year: 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.

Live Music for Old Hollywood Events

Old Hollywood themed events call for a repertoire that spans every decade of the movies, big band, swing and pop. We do literally thousands of songs that speak to your most glamourous, romantic, elegant and fun moods! The lyrics, the melodies and the arrangements are magical and memorable.

A partial list of the songs our jazz and swing combos play is available at judy chamberlain.com

And if you don’t see your favorites on our list, our bands probably play them anyway. Everything is customized, completely live and in-the-moment.

Now that’s Old Hollywood glamour!

Modern Vintage Live Music

We never play anything the same way once….

Live music can be a very eclectic mix.

Surf punk meets rock meets soul meets…jazz. It’s not canned. And it’s not Kenny G. or Spyro Gyra. It’s not the usual pap, either.

It’s Lynyrd Skynyrd…and Cole Porter. And it’s all swing to us.

It’s mostly vintage, but not the least bit old-fashioned. Nostalgic and contemporary overtones, undertones, passing tones and inner voices are woven into a fabric of spontaneous, in-the-moment re-mixes.

It is at once wonderfully complex and also simple, pure and extraordinarily understated. Even at its most innovative and experimental, it’s happily familiar. We call it “modern vintage.”

When the world gets crazy, good music is more important than ever.

Hiring A “Sinatra Singer” For Your Wedding?

Someone I know once hired a “Sinatra Singer” to perform “live music” at his event.
“The guy was terrible,” he said.

Evidently, the fellow was singing with tracks.

Live music is a funny thing. It’s supposed to be LIVE.

Which totally does not mean having a pre-recorded music “track” playing while the so-called “band” is playing along with it. Some of these pre-recorded tracks include vocal enhancement, as well — and the “voices” onstage sing right over them.!

Not everybody knows the difference, either.

But live music is not supposed to be karaoke – or semi-karaoke.

As for impersonators — why substitute hamburger for caviar?

I hate to say it, but the “Sinatra singers” are NOT Sinatra.

Part of the charm of the Rat Pack was their ability to pull off spontaneity, even though many of their best bits of “shtick” were actually well-rehearsed.

But their easygoing repartee was not a copy of anyone or anything else.

There is not going to be another Rat Pack, ever.

And there is not going to be another Sinatra.

But the live vintage music we do for weddings and events comes pretty close.

Live Music For Corporate Events

Live music is an interactive art form.

It’s not for everyone, but the wise party giver knows that events take on a sparkling personality with live music.

Corporate events are often “hurry up and wait,” with speeches and presentations and some music in the mix. Maybe there will be dancing for the guests; maybe not.

It’s my feeling that live music is even more important when there isn’t dancing.

Generally, it’s more entertaining than canned music.

It gives the guests a focal point, and can capture a mood that recorded music doesn’t match.

A Palm Springs Jazz Wedding… For A Rock Star

“Papa” John Phillips created an entirely new sound in the 1960’s.

The hits of the “Mamas and the Papas,” many of which he wrote — and the arrangements for those songs — were based, he told me, on “something old, something new and all of it just slightly familiar so you think you may have heard it before or should have heard it before but can’t quite put your finger on it.”

That something was jazz.

The iconic songwriter, singer and Monterey Pop Festival producer who had put Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin on the world’s stage for the first time, Phillips was actually a jazzer at heart.

John loved jazz so much that he named his daughter Bijou after a Lambert, Hendricks and Ross tune, “Mon Petit Bijou.”

One night at the Palm Springs house he shared with his fourth and forever wife, Farnaz, he decided to teach me how to sing the poignant jazz classic, “Something Cool.” It was about 4 a.m. — John never slept — and he had picked up his 12-string guitar, sat down on the floor and crossed his long legs in front of him. Strumming and phrasing slowly and simply, he sang in the eloquent voice of the weary alcoholic female telling of her sad life. He was a great storyteller!

I have sung it exactly that way ever since.

To celebrate John and Farnaz’ marriage in 1995, we invited a bunch of friends to an intimate party at Mel Haber’s Ingleside Inn.

I love Mel Haber. He once sent me a postcard that read: “What have you done for me lately?”

My plan was to entertain John with all of the great Mama’s and Papa’s hits, which we did. My daughter Jennifer had learned the harmonies to “Monday, Monday,” “California Dreaming,” “This Is Dedicated To The One I Love” and the Mama Cass re-make of Gus Kahn’s “Dream A Little Dream Of Me” and sang backup with me and the band, which was great fun.

But what John really wanted to hear was his favorite song, “My Foolish Heart.”

He always said it was the only song he would ever dance to — and that he would only dance to it when I was singing it.

And dance he and Farnaz did, that sultry almost-spring night in Palm Springs in 1995.

“Mama Cass is looking over your shoulder,” he told me.

We would only have him for six more years.

John adored the Great American Songbook, especially Cole Porter’s music. He was particularly fond of the little-known verses, and loved that I included them in my renditions of the tunes.

He thought “My Foolish Heart” should have a verse, too, and often threatened to write one for me in the style of Cole Porter, which he never actually got around to doing.

So I wrote one myself after he died.

It’s dedicated to him, of course.

Old Hollywood Weddings With Vintage Live Music!

Planning an Old Hollywood wedding?

You’ll need some great vintage wedding music to go with your petit fours, wedding cake, champagne, chicken a la king and canapes.

And there’s nothing that says vintage better than live vintage music.

Our bands specialize in vintage live music, spontaneity and an enormous repertoire that includes thousands of songs from the 1920’s Jazz Age Roaring Twenties, 1930’s deco, Old Hollywood, the 1930’s and 1940’s Swing Era, 1950’s Mid-Century Moderne and Sinatra Rat Pack, doo-wop, rock & roll oldies, 1960’s pop, the Beatles and the British Invasion, 1970’s R&B, Motown, soul and funk and just about everything from your favorite Broadway shows and the movies.

We love MGM movie musicals, Audrey Hepburn, Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson and Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers!

Afternoon or evening, in an outdoor garden or in an upscale hotel ballroom, at the beach or in your back yard — there’s nothing like live music to absolutely make a wedding!

Old fashioned weddings are fun. People used to have them all the time. Seriously.

Back in “the day,” they almost always had live music, especially when they were having an actual wedding reception.

Your wedding, with the help of live music — especially vintage live music — can be your own Broadway or Old Hollywood production.

As well it should be!

California Beach Wedding Destinations

There’s something so special about having a live band, and nothing like live vintage music to set up an element of luxury and elegance on any budget.

And everyone loves an ocean view.

There are many lovely settings in Southern California.

From Pismo Beach to Laguna Niguel….Santa Barbara to La Jolla…there are beaches and backyards overlooking beaches. The weather is great pretty much year-round.

Even when it rains, the weather is fun in California!