Live Music for Weddings & Events: Ask A Bandleader!
Live music for weddings and events usually requires more preparation than it takes to allocate a corner of the room to a DJ — or plug in a microphone and put a speaker’s podium on a stage for an awards banquet.
Ever wonder why DJ’s are so loud? “They probably don’t know as much about music as we do,” says Judy Chamberlain, a Los Angeles bandleader who prefers sublety to volume.
“They’re there to make noise, and to M/C, not to make music.”
“When you hire a live band to entertain,” says Chamberlain, you may just be getting something better than noise — or an imitation of something. That’s why you hire a live band!”
What kind of music do you perform?
We play pretty much everything! Rock & roll, standards, jazz, swing, blues, classic country, latin, Motown, funk, soul, r&b, ballroom, Broadway, movie music…basically, all the cool tunes of the Twentieth Century. If you can think of it, we can probably play it. And if you can’t think of it, we can! That said, we’re not a “cover band.”
It’s important to understand that some songs are best left to the artists who originally recorded them. If you like Anita Baker, Sade or Tiny Tim, you may want to hire a DJ. Or an “impersonator.” In our humble opinion, some people really are inimitable.
Now, give us Sting, Rod Stewart, Norah Jones, Michael Buble, Kenny G. — and we’re delighted to research what it is you like about the music you’ve heard on their records and try to give you those same elements. They do the standards well, and have brought back some terrific obscurities. Buble and Jones are also talented songwriters. Besides, some of our musicians are actually on their albums.
One needs only to listen to Sting singing “You Were Meant For Me” to realize how viable the standards really are. We’re always inspired by creativity like his.
What if we’re rehearsed a dance routine to a specific recording?
If you’ve rehearsed a special dance number to a standard — like any Frank Sinatra song, for instance — or Etta James’ “At Last,” we’ll play those songs in the same exact format for you, note for note. That’s easy! And we recently did the Michael Buble composition, “Everything,” at a wedding in Arizona exactly the way he sings it so as not to throw our clients dancers off their perfectly rehearsed dance routine. And it was fabulous!
At the very least, we’ll listen to the record, match the tempo and length of the song and coach you on ways we can make your routine even more interesting by adding a musical “introduction” to it. We’re not just pushing buttons around here. But, of course, some of us are actually on those records!
Who are your musical influences?
There are so many! One of my favorites is Fred Astaire. He sang and danced and swung like mad even when he was simply walking across a room. Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and The Boswell Sisters were also stunning performers. They all learned from each other, and often recorded the same material. Each version was wonderful, and there was room for them all. That’s why we call the music of the Great American Songbook “standards.”
We’re also inspired by Louis Armstrong, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Nat King Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Bing Crosby, Howard Keel, Mario Lanza…and Bill Evans, The Platters, Bobby Darin, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Paul Anka, Joni Mitchell, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Astrud Gilberto, Etta James, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Mamas and the Papas, ABBA…along with so many more.
If Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rogers & Hart, Rogers & Hammerstein, George & Ira Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Johnny Mercer, Johnny Mandel, Michel Legrand or Hoagy Carmichael wrote it, we probably play it.
Good music is good music.
What are some of your special skills?
We can read a room to the point that we’re actually breathing in time with the mood. We help create that mood, match it, uplift and elevate it. Our knowledge, taste, experience and intuition help us create spontaneous live “soundtracks” for the most important moments of a lifetime.
None of this is rehearsed. Sometimes I think it might be fun to call a rehearsal, but nobody would come. We don’t need to rehearse; we’re all tune geeks who know a tremendous variety of music. With some bands, you give them a song list and they need to have a couple of rehearsals because they’ve never played those songs before. Guess who’s paying for those rehearsals? YOU are! But we’ve been playing this music all of our lives.
What else makes you “different?”
Tell us you love Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Cole Porter and these are major clues to what we’ll be cooking up to play for you. We’re elegant, fun and exciting — and far from normal. An evening of music with us is always filled with great surprises. We surprise even ourselves with what we think of to do! But it’s never about us. It’s always about the client, the event…and the music. When we’re gone, there won’t be much in the way of great live music for events coming up to replace us. Maybe that’s why DJ’s are so popular; it’s hard to find a really good live band that can perform a tremendous variety of dance and listening music without playing with “tracks” or in other ways trying to imitate someone else’s phrasing and style. And if you’re going to hire one of those, you might as well get a DJ!
How do you handle song lists for various events?
We’re going to play what you want to hear. We probably know it, because we know thousands of songs. But we also learn new songs easily. We’ve been asked to play hip hop songs, and have been able to re-arrange them so that they’ve become some of our best “modern” stnadards. We’ve probably forgotten more songs than most people ever knew. But, basically, if you can think of it, we can probably play it. And if you can’t think of it, we can!
Do you M/C?
WE CERTAINLY DO!!!!! We’re really good at it, too.
How far will you travel to do an event?
As the song says, “if you could use some exotic booze, there’s a bar in far Bombay….”
We love to travel, and do it very efficiently. We’re the bus, not the bus stop, so we have to travel! Long distance planning is actually one of our specialties. We will go anywhere. And if you are coming to California, we’ll be delighted to be your West Coast connection. We are who and what we say we are, as documented by many articles written by recognized journalists. These are not paid advertisements!
We’re very thorough, dedicated team players and usually the first to arrive and the last to leave any event. Our clients tell us that the thing they thought was going to be the most difficult about planning their event — the music — became the easiest once they found us. We are available for travel throughout California and the USA.
Helloooo, New York and New England…it’s probably less expensive to fly us there and have us play for your event than it is to hire a NYC-based band! And there’s really nothing like us in most of the rest of the country.
How can we obtain a price quote?
We’ll be happy to discuss pricing with you and recommend what we feel you really need, not what someone else might like to (over)sell you. Some events are more complicated than others. But we work with all sorts of budgets, and are seriously dedicated to providing great live music to people who really appreciate it. We’ve done some terrific celebrity events, and played in more than a few back yards. Once, we even played for the flushing of a toilet. We always said we would — and we did. As the guests entered the showroom, we played “Splish Spash!” Ask us to tell you about that party; it was a doozy!
But, seriously, if your budget is on the low end and you love that big band music, five of us are probably better than ten of someone else. Frank Sinatra knew the secret of playing charts written for a 60-piece orchestra with a small combo, and so do we. It’s called “great musicianship.” Sometimes less is more!
We’re here to help, whether you hire us or not.
714 319-9242