Gregory Tait: Hear no evil

When Gregory Tait steps into the lobby of a luxury hotel, he doesn’t head for reception or hightail it to his room. The Vancouver-based musician blends, chameleon-like, into the fabric of the hotel, paying careful attention to the architecture, interior design and the customer demographics. For two to three days he’ll quietly study the most intimate details of these public spaces, identifying just what makes them tick. When he leaves, he’ll be primed to compile a custom-made audio experience based on his observations.

As a music stylist, Tait has the enviable position of providing a musical soundtrack for some of the world’s most palatial hotels.

“Basically what we do is provide not only the technology and infrastructure to deliver the music via the Internet but we program customized music playlists and programs that are timetabled into different parts of the day so that a destination has its own program of music,” says Tait from his Yaletown office. “It’s taking a specialized, unique approach to the background music industry and giving it more of a sensory inclusion into the design of the hotel.”

As head of a Vancouver-based subsidiary of U.K.-based Music Styling, the classically trained jazz guitarist and former DJ has crafted the perfect occupation for any lover of world music. He stumbled upon the opportunity online after searching for a way to blend his love of music with a viable day job. Since joining forces with Music Styling three years ago, he has added some 200 properties to his portfolio, including the lavish St. Regis Hotel in Bora Bora, and the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, made famous in the Academy-Award-nominated film Lost in Translation.

“I spend a great deal of time in each outlet just experiencing the food, interacting with the staff and visiting at multiple points during the day to see how the flow of people come and go from the area at any given time,” he says. “It’s getting to the point where I have to pinch myself every once in a while and say, ‘Look what you’re doing.’ I sometimes take it for granted, but it’s a really amazing job that fell in my lap for all the right reasons.”