(excerpted from a two-disc review with Doug Wamble's Blue State on Marsalis Music)

This fresh, unpolished quartet offers an unpretentious date led by an earthy acoustic guitarist — Pat Bergeson, pingy and polite — and plays good originals mixed with a few jazz or pop standards. But it's the arresting, quirky singer — Annie Sellick's catchy, smart-as-a-fox alto — that steals the show.

On Low Standards, Bergeson and vibist Steve Shapiro lead their low-key band through Latinized classics (Duke Ellington with Afro-mallets) and lush, leisurely originals ("End Of The Road," "Please Be Early") with lucid grace if little excitement. When they back Sellick on shorter alternating tracks, they ease into overdrive for her insinuating smears and hints of Diana Krall ("You Don't Know What Love Is") and savvy Carmen McRae snap ("Everything Happens To Me").

Sellick, a rave in Nashville, shows country flair only on a Jackson Browne ballad where Bergeson keens wistful harmonica fills over tasteful guitar. Tenor saxophonis Scott Kreitzer amiably blows half the set.

— Fred Bouchard
© DownBeat, October 2005