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For certain, Annie Sellick's best quality as a singer is her ability to make audiences happy. An unusually engaging performer, she has won a large, devoted following and earned rave reviews, beginning with numerous “Best Jazz Artist” awards in the Nashville Media. A Nashville native, the last few years have taken her around the world and quite often to the west coast. Her third CD, “A Little Piece of Heaven” (2005 - Chalice Music Inc.) was recorded live in Los Angeles and features the Gerald Clayton Trio with special guest Bruce Forman, and arrangements by Shelly Berg. It is as free-spirited and full-of-playfulness as she is on-stage. She is working on an upcoming release that features the Gerald Clayton Trio and the Jeff Hamilton Trio, a project she and Jeff Hamilton are co-producing.
Annie’s jazz journey began auspiciously when she sat in with guitarist Roland Gresham's group at a club near the college she attended. After her performance, the crowd rose to their feet cheering, and it was clear she had found her calling. After working a year with that trio, she expanded and moved back to her hometown. She honed her skills at the Nashville Jazz Workshop, where she was offered the first-ever NJW work/study (and she now occasionally teaches). Within a few years of her Nashville debut, she had become a mainstay at the major jazz venues, worked with all of her favorite jazz artists there (including Beegie Adair, Jeff Coffin, Bela Fleck and Rod McGaha), was profiled in every major Nashville paper, and gave a celebrated sold-out performance backed by the Nashville Symphony. She is a regular member of and vocalist for the Nashville Jazz Orchestra, with whom she has also recorded. Annie immediately caught Nashville‘s attention with her her regular jazz gigs, her ability to entertain, and her striking appearance - her waist-length dread-locks swinging against her evening gown.
Her career in jazz has taken her through four CD's on her own label (one with renowned jazz organist Joey DeFrancesco), stardom in her hometown, and regular appearances in Atlanta, New York (where she also lived), Los Angeles, Germany and Montreal, including the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2005. In 2006, she toured briefly with Mark O’Connor’s Hot Swing (as a sub for Roberta Gambarini). Sellick is also growing a fan-base in Japan, going twice a year to tour the jazz clubs in the major cities, and working with artists such as John DiMartino, David Hazeltine, Grant Stewart, and Eddie Higgins.
Appreciation for her Nashville roots lead to another musical incarnation she calls “Annie and the Hot Club”. In 2007, she and the Hot Club of Nashville (lead by master picker Richard Smith) released a guitar-driven swing album of all original material by local songwriter Tom Sturdevant. “Annie and the Hot Club” has been a favorite at European guitar festivals, including the Tommy Emmanuel Guitar Festival in Germany.
Annie Sellick’s fans stay with her on the musical turns she takes from album to album. Whether it’s straight-ahead piano trio, organ jazz or “Nashville” jazz, the common thread they love is her upbeat personality…not to mention collaborations with the finest musicians around.
“She’s a comer” says Don Heckman of the Los Angeles Times.
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