Professional Bio

RSM Executive producer Rita Selby is a NY-based vocalist, pianist, composer, lyricist and recording artist whose career spans more than three decades. A graduate of William Paterson University, where she earned a Bachelor of Music in Classical Piano and Voice Performance in 1990, Selby began her musical studies on piano at age five and went on to post-grad jazz piano study with Jim McNeely and Kenny Werner, jazz voice with Ann Marie Moss, and classical piano with Peter Serkin.

Selby’s genre-bending style blends influences from jazz to classical, blues to latin, and bossa nova to contemporary - considering it all to be ‘world music’. She has performed at such New York venues as Birdland, 92nd St. Y, Cornelia Street Café, Sweet Rhythm, Symphony Space, and The DiMenna Center, to name a few, as well as in Europe. Selby performed as orchestral pianist with the Wayne Chamber Orchestra and with the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble under the baton of Pulitzer prize-winning composer and conductor Charles Wuorinen, on the way to coming “indelibly under the spell of [Ella] Fitzgerald and the jazz-vocal tradition she embodies.” (Kalbacher)

Then, founding Rita Selby Music (RSM) in 1995, Selby turned full-force to jazz singing and composing, and released her debut album Serenade to Bluish Grey that year, with its self-penned title track and liner notes by Hot House magazine founder/editor-in-chief Gene Kalbacher. She followed up with three additional RSM albums in 2005, 2017, and 2018. Her discography features collaborations with an eclectic roster of world-class musicians, including Rufus Reid, Peter Bernstein, Bruce Barth, Doug Weiss, Andy Eulau, Thierry Arpino, Rob Paparozzi, and Daniel Binelli. Parallel to the launch of her early recording catalog, Selby served as a Contributing Editor for Hot House and freelance journalist, conducting definitive interviews with jazz legends and boundary-pushing innovators from Al DiMeola and Pat Martino to Jacques Loussier.

Alongside her musical career, Selby has maintained a parallel career in the legal field, where she has worked for more than three decades supporting attorneys specializing in intellectual property litigation. Concurrently, she earned a Master's degree in Business Management & Leadership, combining her musical background with extensive professional experience in both business and management. Guided by the mentorship of the late Ann Ruckert, co-founder of the Jazz Foundation of America, Selby has continued to push musical boundaries with her signature “highly-listenable jazz songs.” Always growing, Selby has intensively studied psychoanalysis on the institute level for the past four years, bringing music, business and psychology together.

On August 12, 2026, RSM released Tell Me: Songs of Peace & Love, Selby’s fifth studio album, an exciting new musical project. Already critically acclaimed, the album has been officially entered in 9 entries across 7 distinct categories for consideration at the 69th Annual GRAMMY® Awards. Drawing on more than three decades of experience as a vocalist, pianist, composer, recording artist, and producer, the album reflects an artist who has continued to develop her voice and musical identity across a remarkable and multi-faceted career. Tell Me: Songs of Peace & Love - featuring Bruce Barth and Peter Bernstein with fellow New York jazz luminaries - is both a celebration of that journey and an expression of Selby’s ongoing commitment to creating and performing music on her own terms. Listen here.