ANNIE SELLICK
These days she’s fostering a passion for the electric bass and producing electronic music, but vocalist Annie Sellick is most known for twenty-five years of fronting jazz trios. She is known by everyone for her unique and undeniable stage presence, and an ability to use repertoire to share personal authenticity, and connect with the band members as well as everyone in the room. “She doesn’t just sing, she swings, tells stories, shares her heart and celebrates simultaneously” (CDBaby fan post). An accomplished bandleader, she made her living for most of those years by honing relationships with jazz musicians in the areas she toured and traveling to them, sending arrangements in advance, rehearsing them at soundcheck and fleshing out the rest of the show by calling jazz standards and cuing style treatments that would feature the strengths of the musicians on her stage. Her seasoned sense of rhythm, swing and phrasing makes obvious that she can (and has) hang with some of the top names in jazz. She’s also had a life in gypsy swing and big band jazz orchestras, and performed with several known groups in those genres ,as well as lead her own. She’s released eight albums under her own label.
PAT BERGESON
Guitarist and harmonica player Pat Bergeson has written, toured, and recorded with many of his musical heroes. Beginning at the University of Illinois in his home state, he moved on to New York City and picked up a Jazz Studies degree at William Paterson University. After playing in New York for ten years, he moved to Nashville upon the request of Chet Atkins who heard Pat on a demo tape. Chet invited him to play on his album "Sneakin' Around" with Jerry Reed, and later featured Pat's guitar and compositions on his 1994 releases "Read My Licks" and "Simpatico" with Chet Atkins and Suzy Bogguss. Pat continued to tour and record with Chet for several years, and was named as one of his top twelve favorite guitarists in the Oct. 2001 issue of Vintage Guitar magazine.