Pianist Patti Wicks' road to the Jazz Corner a long and unlikely one

Jazz singer. It's a description charged with history and preconceptions:smoky clubs, torch songs, a rasp in the voice that signals a life spent on the road in every kind of room before every kind of crowd. There are some performers who sound like that, and some who don't.

Patti Wicks sounds like a jazz singer. And Wicks brings her voice and her equally accomplished piano chops to the Jazz Corner on Hilton Head Island today and Saturday.

Wicks came to music early. In fact, she came to the world early: She was born prematurely, which resulted in damage to her eyes that severely

limited her eyesight. Yet when she was just 3, Wicks surprised her mother with a note-for-note re-creation at the piano of a tune her mother had just finished playing.

Soon after, Wicks began piano lessons with a teacher from Juilliard who had developed a system of ear training that overcame Wicks' inability to see the sheet music.

Wicks attended the Crane School of Music, part of the state university system in upstate New York. There she met pianist and teacher James Ball, who exposed her to many influential players from the jazz and classical worlds. Pianist -- and former Miles Davis band member -- Bill Evans was an early influence, as evidenced by Wicks' impressive fluidity with ballad playing.

After the Crane School, Wicks went to the de facto school attended by so many of the masters before her: the New York City club scene. She played with everyone from saxophonist Frank Morgan and trumpeter Clark Terry to guitarist Larry Coryell and vocal legend Anita O'Day.

Wicks also toured up and down the East Coast and supplemented her performing income by teaching master classes and college courses.

'room at the top'

It's been more than a decade since Wicks released her first album, 1997's "Room At The Top: The Patti Wicks Trio," with bassist Don Payne and drummer John Yarling.

One sign that Wicks has something special is her appearance on MaxJazz, a record label known for choosing only the finest performers. (Think Rene Marie, Jessica Williams, Claudia Acuña and Terrell Stafford, among others.) Wicks recorded a critically acclaimed CD for MaxJazz in 2004 called "Love Locked Out," and she's followed it up with two more albums of tastefully performed classics, "Italian Sessions" (2005) and "It's A Good Day" (2007). She comes to Hilton Head as part of the tour behind "It's A Good Day," which she kicked off last November aboard the JazzCruise.

Reviewer C. Michael Bailey had this to say about the musician: "Wicks' voice and time can add an additional dimension to any song she sings. Wicks' piano and voice blends the smoky and the heady in a solution of relaxed bliss."