October 13, 2003

Dear Frankye,
We wanted to thank you for your performance at our wedding on July 5, 2003 at Madrona Manor in Healdsburg, CA. You and your band put on a wonderful performance and exceeded our expectations. We received multiple complements on you and the entire band with many saying it was the best entertainment they have seen at a wedding. The events director at Madrona Manor also said you were their most successful daytime band and that they had not seen so many people dancing at a daytime event before.

You are an exceptional singer with great versatility. Your style, ala Sarah Vaughan and other famous female jazz vocalists, fit very well into our event. We especially appreciate your willingness to learn new songs such as Cole Porter’s Too Darn Hot and perform them at our wedding. It definitely was a highlight of the day, and a great song for our swing dancing friends.

We were very pleased with how everything turned out. You and your band were on time, appropriately dressed, and there were no surprises, which is a very good thing on your wedding day. We would definitely recommend you to our friends and associates that may be looking for entertainment in the future.

Sincerely,
WMN

For months we looked for a jazz band for our wedding. Bands sent us cd's. Booking agents sent us portfolios. We went to clubs, bars and concerts. All the bands we heard and saw were ok. We had an endless supply of OK bands. But this was our wedding; "OK" wasn't going to do it. We wanted to be excited about the band and excited about the music.

Bands even invited us to hear them at other people's weddings! And it was here, at someone else's wedding, that we came to know about Frankye Kelly. Frankye wasn't playing at that wedding; another band was. At this particular wedding, in a ballroom atop the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, we sat in the back of the room, bored on a couch, watching yet another OK band.

The bartender -- the same bartender we had seen the previous two times we came to hear bands at this hotel -- brought us some coffee and asked if we liked this band. "They're OK," we said. As he walked away we had a brilliant realization: this man had probably been in this very room for hundreds of weddings, and he'd probably seen hundreds of bands! I ran to the bar and asked him: which, of all the jazz bands he's seen, which was the best, the most exciting, the most exhilarating, the least...OK. After a moment's thought, he said, "Frankye Kelly. Definitely Frankye Kelly."

We went to hear Frankye play at Yoshi's the following week, talked with her the night after that, and we were sold.

We also lucked out because Frankye was the consummate professional to work with. This was especially important because my fiancee and I were not. We were fickle amateurs caught up in the whirlwind of trying to plan our own wedding. Frankye offered constant support, advice, assurance, and guidance. We always seemed to call her at inconsiderate hours, and she always took our calls and came through.

She sent over her song list with hundreds of songs. When we admitted that we didn't know most of them, she sent over a dozen CD's from her personal collection for us to listen to. She offered to learn songs that we really liked, and to her credit Frankye learned our "first dance" song with only a week notice.

At our wedding, the music was wonderful. Frankye did everything she said she would do and the night went off without a hitch. She even helped us practice our first dance by singing the song for us while we stumbled through our steps one last time in the parking lot.

The bartender at the Sir Francis Drake was absolutely right. Frankye Kelly was the most exciting, the most exhilarating, the least...OK band we could have had.

Thank you, Frankye!

Gratefully yours, J. K. and K. D.