Kristi and I went to the Bluebird Café recently in Nashville and heard, for the first time, a wonderful young woman singer named Annie Sellick. She was backed up by a band called “Hot Club,” which was an awesome band. We had the best seats in the house in my opinion, Table 11, which is directly behind two smaller tables that are right in front of the stage. Table 11 seats 6, so a date of two will have to sit with other people, which is usually fun.

With us at Table 11 was two women, 50ish, from Indianapolis who were just in Nashville for several days to hear music, and two other females, one 50ish and the other probably 60ish. They lived in Nashville. As we ordered and waited for the band to begin, we had a very nice talk among the entire table. The singer spoke to the eldest of the two Nashville ladies before the show, which ended up in an interesting explanation late in the show by Ms. Sellick.

Ms. Sellick’s show was outstanding. She sang, with this remarkable band, “hot club” swing jazz tunes. The included a guitarist (who also played a couple songs on harmonica), named Pat Bergeson, who is one of the best guitarists I have ever heard. He played great rhythm and his leads were fast and clean on the fast songs, and very moving and sensitive on the ballads. He apparently spent a number of years as Chet Atkins #2 guitarist. He learned well!

Aaron Till played the hot jazz violin most excellently. What can you say about this top notch Nashville players? They are as good as it gets. A tall man named Dave Pomeroy was on bass, and the name of the drummer was I believe Tom Giampietro. Mr. Pomeroy played stand up bass, and the drummer played only a snare, bass, high hat, and two ride cymbals. They were great. Mr. Giampietro showed how much you can do on a very minimal drum set. The band's music was reminiscent of Django Rheinhardt or Dan Hicks, but they have their own thing going for sure.

One reason is because of Ms. Sellick. She is an extremely talented singer - natural and charismatic on stage, and precise but enthusiastic in her delivery. And, with her long blonde dreadlocks, and that beautiful sound coming from her mouth, she is very commanding and beautiful on stage.

But what made the show totally interesting to us was her songlist as her performance unfolded. In her very natural stage personae, she told from the beginning about how, as a native of Nashville, and having become a “jazz” singer, she wasn’t necessarily in the mainstream flow of the Nashville music business. In thinking about material to sing, she began to wonder if there weren’t jazz songwriters lurking in the corners of Nashville, unknown, with great songs waiting to be sung. She embarked on a quest to start tracking them down.

She found a man named Tom Sturdevant, a very prolific songwriter who had been in Nashville for awhile. She fell in love with his songs, and began a project to learn an albums worth of his songs, which she did in the last year or so, and they just have released the CD this week. She played a bunch of the songs from the CD. The songs run a variety of moods, and most are character sketches of eccentric people - a subject that obviously Mr. Sturdevant knows well. There is no doubt that his songs are unique. It is actually kind of mind boggling that he has written all these songs, and apparently a lot more, in pretty much obscurity.

Ms. Sellick had Mr. Sturdevant come up on stage early in the show and sing a duet with her. His voice wasn’t anywhere near to Ms. Sellick’s, but he had a good songwriter’s voice. But there is no doubt that the two of them have developed a special friendship which comes through in the music. In fact, at one point Ms. Sellick said that he had become a sort of life counselor for her. I know that it must be amazing for him to get this kind of recognition after so many years of working for the sheer art of it.

Later in the set, she would bring him up to play 3 songs himself while he played electric piano. He is a very unassuming looking person. Looks like a lot of the farmers I know around here. Very soft-spoken, but those songs. I can see why Ms. Sellick fell in love with them and him.
Of course, the Bluebird Café is the definition of “ambiance” when it comes to a music venue. It was my birthday also, which made it doubly special. We had a nice meal, two good beers, and some of the best music you could hear. It was a great evening. I highly recommend Annie Sellick and Hot Club band. If you get a chance to see her, we both highly recommend that you take the opportunity. She has a “myspace” page http://www.myspace.com/annieandthehotclub which tells a little more about her collaboration with Mr. Sturdevant and where you can hear for free 4 of the songs off the album. Take a listen!

Oh yeah, at the end of the set, Ms. Sellick told a humorous story about her college graduation. She said that she was taking Spanish, and because of her singing, was missing a lot of classes. The woman that had been sitting at our table that she had spoken with before the performance, (she had just gotten up and left) it turns out, had been her Spanish teacher at that time. She needed the credit to graduate, and this lady was threatening to not pass her. So, the teacher gave her one last chance to do a major project to make up for everything she had missed. So, she translated I believe she said 4 songs into spanish and sang them for the class. The teacher passed her and she graduated! Then for her last song, she sang one of those songs, the standard “Blue Moon,” several verses in Spanish and then ended it in English. A cute story and great song to end the night!