A Dallas jazz singer in California: What a swell party it was!

Lou Delmonico, one of the original founders of Southern California’s Orange County Performing Arts Center, celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday recently.

Lou sits on many arts-related boards; his love of opera and chorale music is legendary.

He’s also a great fan of classic jazz, the kind you can dance to.

Standards. Big band. He loves it all.

I was honored to have been part of the spectacular celebration Lou put on for his many friends and associates.

Lou flew me out from Dallas, with instructions to assemble the wonderful musicians I work with in California.

It was quite a band: Bill Cunliffe, Terry Harrington, Steve Wilkerson, Dean Koba, Kye Palmer, Ben May, Tony Campodinico, Barry Zweig.

Can you spell “G-R-A-M-M-Y?”

These folks have played on many Grammy award-winning albums, and have a few statues of their own.

It’s always great fun to work for Lou. He knows what he wants, which makes entertaining his guests a delight.

And, of course, I know a lot of the folks in his crowd. It was good to see them, too.

I think I sang for five hours.

And guys…there is never enough time.

You are the best musicians in the world, the pink cloud on which the musical dreams of this singer have floated effortlessly… Read the full story »

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A Jazz Singer In Dallas

It’s been more than six years since we moved halfway across the country to our home in Dallas, TX.

In the thirty years we lived in California, a lot of things changed there — some for the better, and some not.

Texas is a far different place, and even more different from the locales of my childhood, New York City and Coastal Connecticut.

In all of these places, though, one can certainly become enveloped in a strong sense of community.

And never more so than here, today.

One night not long after we arrived in Texas, I went out with a friend for dinner.

Sitting at the bar, we were befriended by four people – two seated on either side of us.

From, of all places, California.

I mean, they were from exactly MY California — where I had lived and worked all those years.

They had just moved here.

When we “friended” each other on Facebook, we knew some people in common.

And not just ANY people, either.

I won’t name names, but they would be quite recognizable to almost anyone who watches TV, eats in restaurants or was a close friend of Frank Sinatra’s.

This sort of thing happens often to me in Texas. Before I changed my California vanity… Read the full story »

Tagged: California, Dallas jazz singer, Judy Chamberlain, Texas

Frank Sinatra did not write Fly Me To The Moon

The internet is loaded with stuff like this:

Fly Me To The Moon “by” Frank Sinatra.

Shame on you, Pandora.

Sinatra may have had the hit, but he didn’t write the song.

A guy named Bart Howard did.

To me, this is about as bad as looking at the Facebook page of one of New York City’s most venerable restaurants and finding a picture of colorful little French macarons with the title “MACAROONS.”

Probably one of those erroneous spell-checker “corrections”…but still.

As some of you may know, I was once a restaurant critic.

I wonder what New York Magazine’s Adam Platt makes of this sort of thing.

Psst…Adam, call me!

Judy can be reached at 972 261-8025

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Dallas Wedding Bands, Live Jazz, Swing & Big Band Music

Judy Chamberlain Entertainment, a unique live Dallas, Texas wedding music band boutique, provides extraordinary bands, musicians and music for the most elegant weddings in Texas. From jazz trios and quartets to swing ensembles and an entire swinging big band orchestra, we’ll rock your world with the finest in live music, played totally LIVE and in the moment.

With a 4,000 song repertoire of jazz, swing and big band music played by world-renowned musicians, this is one unusual event entertainment company!

Many of our clients are entertainers themselves; some are well-known celebrities and household names. They trust us to respect their confidentiality, offer event production guidance and fit into small spaces when necessary. We even take requests directly from the dance floor!

We don’t have to be a huge band to play big band music, swing and those wonderful Rat Pack standards. It’s amazing what a small combo of incredibly talented musicians can do to literally “make” a wedding or event. It doesn’t take more than a few of us to play thousands of songs from the 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s, 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s and beyond.

Not only do we play them – completely live – but we play them very, very well.

There is nobody quite… Read the full story »

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Dallas Jazz Singer Judy Chamberlain

Press Clips, Reviews:

New York…Los Angeles…Dallas…what a trip!

“Dallas jazz singer Judy Chamberlain is hot! I went to hear her sing recently, and now have some idea what to expect when Judy takes the stage…anything!” From her legendary repertoire of 4,000 American songs Judy covers all kinds of jazz and a good number of the best-written pop and rock songs. And because of her masterful phrasing you’ll hear new things in every song she sings. This is an interpretive artist who can hold her own with the great singers of the past. Her ability to improvise and deliver a strong reading of every song she sings accounts for the fact that great guitarists like Al Viola, gave Sinatra more than 25 years of his life – and gave a large part of the last 10 to Judy. And explains the appearance of her long-time bass player Ben May on a new CD she recorded before moving here from Los Angeles. She’s kept her own band together for many years, liberally laced with some of the best players in the jazz world. After hearing her, whenever and wherever, you’ll find that the lyrics of the songs she sings will be looping through your… Read the full story »

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