About the Nashville Jazz Orchestra, from the liner notes on
Live at B.B. King's, featuring Annie Sellick

It must by that every city wants a symphony, a chamber orchestra, a ballet, an opera, and a jazz orchestra... otherwise there wouldn't be so many attempts at forming these musical treasures.

Jazz orchestras (big bands), over the years, have met varying degrees of success. Many that are successful today have incorporated into non- profit organizations. That seems to open doors and is a first step in creating a lifesaving niche for the band. Even the Village Vanguard Band, formerly the Mel Lewis Band, formerly the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band, finally incorporated to stay afloat. If a band of international names centered in a club in Greenwich Village, the hottest neighborhood of jazz on the planet, can't make it on reputation alone, then drastic measures are required.

The Nashville Jazz Orchestra was formed in 1996. The non-profit organization was patterned after the Columbus Jazz Orchestra of Columbus, Ohio. CJO is probably the best success story in America in terms of financial support for jazz and the people who play it. It supports a full subscription concert series equal to the Columbus Symphony.

With a mission statement that could be summed up in two words, "perpetuate jazz," the Nashville Jazz Orchestra began playing concerts at schools, parks, festivals, clubs and theatres. For a number of years, NJO made steady progress but a slowing economy, scheduling conflicts and lack of an organized community jazz support group caused the band to go inactive for two years.

In February 2003, I called sixteen of the top session player in town I knew to have a passion for big band jazz, performance level sight-reading skills and the ability to swing. I asked the guys if they would like to get together on a Wednesday night at the Nashville Jazz Workshop to read some music that I had recently acquired. The arrangements were challenging, musical, hard swinging and extremely fun to play. At the end of the night, we scheduled a second session. Guys in the band began to bring in more music and in March 2003, a Wednesday night reading band was born.

As I've paid my road dues over the years, I've noticed a city-to-city tradition of Monday night jazz, including a few performances of the three Vanguard bands. Building on the Monday idea and the band's enthusiasm, we persuaded club owner, Jody Faison, to begin featuring NJO on Monday evenings at the established jazz club, Cafe 123.

A strong influence for the orchestra has been The Nashville Jazz Workshop, created by husband and wife team Roger Spencer and Lori Meachem. Their hands-on approach to teaching jazz continues to turn out quality musicians that contribute to the jazz scene in Nashville and other cities. One such bright spot is the very talented and resourceful Annie Sellick.

When we began talking about Mondays, I approached Annie with the idea of joining the band for a pair of tunes each set. At first we only had one chart written specifically for Annie, but she was able to pull off convincing performances of makeshift arrangements not even in her keys. It quickly became apparent that Annie's musicianship was on par with the band and a marriage ensued.

We played Mondays at Cafe 123 from June 1, 2003 through November and at B.B. King's from December 1 through May 2004. The band is slated to return to Cafe 123 in July.

I mentioned earlier that the band members are strong readers and it's also worth mentioning that the band read "A Foggy Day" for the first time during the short soundcheck before this recording. Not only that, but it was the first tune for Annie on the set.

I'm honored and thrilled to be a part of the Nashville Jazz Orchestra and I can only expect its future to be bright. I hope the recording is as exciting for you as it is for the entire band and me.

—Jim Williamson