Chita & All That Jazz actually began in 1975 when the great director/choreographer Bob Fosse had a heart attack in the middle of putting Chicago together. To keep Chita interested until they could get Chicago back on track, songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb suggested she put on a nightclub act with some colleagues. She did, and the result was quite successful.

Years later, in 1997, after Kiss of the Spider Woman, Chita was simultaneously exhausted and invigorated. She returned to the idea of a cabaret show and named the new effort Chita & All That Jazz, borrowing the title from the opening number she had sung in Chicago, twenty years before.

Chita & All That Jazz opened in San Francisco in October 1997 and continued on a national tour in various incarnations over the next couple of years, including Philadelphia, Stamford, St. Petersburg, Dallas, Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, Toronto, Baltimore, and Atlantic City. The plan was to open on Broadway, but other projects kept intervening.

Trivia:
Among the projects Chita turned down during this busy period was an invitation to replace Zoe Caldwell on Broadway in Master Class. Miss Caldwell was replaced by Patti LuPone and then Dixie Carter.