While walking through the world-renowned streets of Beverly Hills, you may have seen the I.M. Chait Gallery. The owner of this highly respected Asian art gallery and auction house, Izzy Chait, is also a very talented singer of jazz and pop standards and performs regularly in Los Angeles.
His interpretations of the masters of American songwriters seem to have some similarities. The riveting and timeless melody and lyrics of Cole Porter’s Night and Day, for example, gives one a sense of how random the paths that life may be.
In the late 19th century, Cole Porter, for example, was born to a wealthy family in Indiana. He eventually made his way to Yale University, where he wrote more than 300 songs.
After graduating from Yale, Porter studied law at Harvard, but soon felt he was not destined to be a lawyer and switched to the school’s music department. He studied harmony and counterpoint. If not for the encouragement of his mother, (who kept the secret from Porter’s father about quitting the law), the world may not have been given this wonderful gift of songs that will be here for the rest of time.
Izzy Chait was born in Germany, moving to America with his family when he was three. He grew up in the Los Angeles area, remembers watching Your Hit Parade on television and being attracted to 1950s standards, pop, rhythm & blues and doo wop.
After a stint in the Marine Corps where he served in Viet Nam and sang for beers, he studied anthropology and ethnomusicology at UCLA. Eventually he began singing in clubs around Los Angeles while going to school.
While in the Marines overseas, he developed a fascination for Asian antiques and started buying and selling them as a hobby. Just as Cole Porter had to make a career and life changing choice, Chait decided to quit singing because the lifestyle conflicted with him building up his business.
In the late 1990s while on a cruise in the Caribbean, some of the ship’s musicians invited Chait up on stage to sing. Chait realized that he missed singing. Now, jazz and pop fans are the lucky recipients of a career that may have not been reignited, if not for that fateful night on that ship. It’s funny how the serendipitous moments in life sometimes shape the rest of our lives.
The well respected Asian art dealer will be back on the stage for two shows in Culver City, as part of the Culvers Club for Jazz, located at the DoubleTree hotel by Hilton on Centinela Avenue, near Sepulveda Boulevard, on Friday, June 1st.
Chait will be joined by an all-star lineup of L.A.’s most talented musicians, including guitarist Don Peake, who played with Ray Charles and Tina Turner, Jerry Vivino on sax, from Conan O’Brien’s band, and Paul Kreibich on drums, who has hit the skins for Ray Charles, Woody Herman and more. The shows are 8 and 9:30 p.m. with a $10 cover charge. Reservations are recommended. More info on the concert can be found at http://www.in-housemusic.com/.
Jonathan Weiss is a Los Angeles based music supervisor for film, TV and advertising and radio journalist. Email him at jonjaz@aol.com