Jazz vocalist Elli Fordyce takes a new approach to standards and some seldom heard gems with her feeling-filled, swinging interpretations. Includes charming duets with Jim Malloy.

13 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Jazz Vocals, JAZZ: Mainstream Jazz



Details:
In addition to NY radio, native-New-Yorker Elli Fordyceâs earliest exposure to jazz was at the jam sessions of best buddy and then-drummer Bobby (âDarinâ) Cossotto, which occurred while they surreptitiously cut classes! Soon she was singing with a local dance band followed by a summer with a jazz trio. But, months after a triumphant debut before a thousand other freshmen at the University of Massachusetts, Elli chose marriage and a family over career.

At 30, after returning to performing and studying Music Ed, she and fellow-student/musician Randy Fordyce helped form a jazz quartet. The next 14 years often found Elli âon-the-roadâ learning and plying her craft. From cruises to Playboy Clubs, hotels to restaurants or in concerts, both in the U.S. and Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other islands, she sang â sometimes jazz, more often pop â in cover-, lounge- and show-groups which she fronted and emceed.

That phase of her life ended on a snowy highway en route to a gig in Illinois when their drummer drove Elliâs car containing the band and equipment into a disabled truck, haulting a yearâs tour by âElli Fordyce And Her Favorite
Things.â She focused firmly on needed physical and spiritual healing and, tossing out a four-foot stack of sheet music and fake books, stopped singing for 15 years (ânot even âHappy Birthday,â not even in the showerâ).

After naming her Yorkie puppy âDindiâ (Portuguese for âlittle jewelâ), title of Elliâs favorite Jobim bossa nova, Elli would sing it to her, inspiring Elliâs return
to her first love: jazz. In a cabaret class taught by brilliant MAC-Award-winning recording artist Lina Koutrakos, Elli learned of renowned jazz pianist/magical educator Barry Harrisâs workshops. Barry, her long-sought jazz guru, put Elli squarely on her path and made a comeback inevitable.

Elli has since performed in the NY-Metro area in âa tune here, a run there, a show or event somewhere elseâ including an appearance in the Town Hall Cabaret Convention. Sheâs trained in acting and voice-over, taken performance workshops and studied voice, music theory and jazz improvisation. Her first record in progress, Elli acts in films and on TV, interviews artists co-hosting a
local show and was in âGuys and Dolls.â As she says, âHey, itâs never too late!