Judy Chamberlain is an American jazz singer, bandleader and journalist known for her extensive repertoire, estimated to include several thousand songs from the Great American Songbook.
The Los Angeles Times jazz critic Don Heckman has called Judy “remarkably eclectic and versatile…always an intriguing interpreter of the standards,” and has written that she is “almost guaranteed to know your favorite love song, no matter how obscure.” An exciting entertainer, she has “mastered the art of mesmerizing both the audience and her own band,” according to jazz critic Scott Yanow’s review of her in the All Music Guide to Jazz.
Growing up in a New York City media and entertainment family, Chamberlain was taken regularly to Broadway shows, the Plaza Hotel, The Stork Club, Sardi’s and the hole-in-the wall jazz clubs of West 52nd Street. One night, she heard Mabel Mercer singing Cole Porter tunes — with Cole Porter in the room. “I was just a little kid, but I was hooked,” she says. “Those lyrics were great. I had no idea what they meant, but I knew I loved them.” She started singing professionally at age 13, focused on the swing idiom and with a strong desire not to let anyone turn her into “the next Theresa Brewer.”
Following a move to Southern California in 1980, Chamberlain wrote op-ed columns and restaurant reviews for the Orange Coast Daily Pilot in Costa Mesa, reviewed restaurants for the Torrance Daily Breeze, The Los Angeles Times Calendar Live and Cox Interactive Media’s LAInsider.com and ocnow.com and hosted Dining With Judy on K-OCEAN 103.1 FM in Newport Beach and Savoire Fare on the Orange County News Channel.
She also served as Artistic Director for Spazio Jazz Supper Club in Sherman Oaks, Elario’s Jazz Club in La Jolla and The Millenium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and produced offsite concerts for Pacific Public Radio’s K-JAZZ 88.1 FM throughout the Southland.
In 2005, Chamberlain fronted a ten-piece band with Frank Sinatra’s longtime guitarist Al Viola for a “Jazz Salute to Frank Sinatra” in Hollywood.
She has performed in the Playboy Jazz Festival and appeared on E! Entertainment, The Style Network and ABC’s “The Bachelor.”
An avid music historian, Judy has been thrilled to perform for some of the composers who wrote the songs she sings.
In 1999, Paul Anka presented her with her own lyrics to his Sinatra hit, “My Way,” calling it “My Way, Her Way.”
Chamberlain’s 2002 “Road Trip” CD on JazzBaby Records is a compilation of some of her favorite standards.
In 2011, she relocated to Dallas, TX, where she continues to write and perform.