Elli Fordyce, 72, has had an eclectic acting career, including "Guys & Dolls"and an appearance

on "Chappelle's Show." (Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News Carucha L. Me)

A jazz sensation at 73
BY CHRIS SERICO • CSERICO@LOHUD.COM • JANUARY 25, 2010

Hey, some people are late bloomers.

At 72, Yonkers jazz singer Elli Fordyce isn't quite ready for a Lifetime Achievement Award, even
if the artist has been singing for more than 40 years.
That's because "Songs Spun of Gold," which received six pre-nominations in this year's
balloting, is only her second album.
The Grammy voting committee considered Fordyce for 13 categories and she made the cut for
six. Although her album, a bouncy collection of standards and jazz classics that showcase her
slowly lilting vibrato, did not make the final round of nominations, she's excited her budding
career is gaining traction.

"Being so unknown, it's amazing to realize the folks that have now heard of, and heard, that CD,
just from the Grammy process," she says.
As a child, Fordyce was influenced by folk singers and Top 40 hit-makers — including Tony
Bennett and Rosemary Clooney — before she learned about the jazz stylings of Chet Baker,
June Christy and Carmen McRae.

"I didn't necessarily love it all, but I had to know every song, the minute it came out," she says.
"Then when I hit high school, a new boyfriend introduced me to jazz, and it was all over."
Once she found her muse, she took her singing on the road. There was a time in her early 30s,
however, when trauma forced Fordyce to take a hiatus from the hobby she loved most.
While on a 1976 tour called "Elli Fordyce and her Favorite Things," a car carrying her quartet
and equipment crashed into a disabled truck on a snowy highway near Urbana, Ill. Fordyce says
she broke a vertebra and, although the rest of the passengers suffered only minor injuries, the
"emotionally wrecked" group broke up a week later. The emotional scars, she says, stifled her
from singing for the next 15 years.

Over time, she healed physically and spiritually. And upon realizing that her Yorkie pup, Dindi,
seemed to like when Fordyce sang the Antonio Carlos Jobim bossa nova after which the dog
was named, singing became a passion once more.

Fordyce reinforced her inspiration through musical mentors singer-songwriter Lina Koutrakos
and jazz pianist Barry Harris, as well as spiritual rebirth.

"Vocal coaches and teachers helped after I'd made the 180-degree turn, but what actually
made that turn possible was a metaphysical process," she says. "Everything shifted in a
nanosecond during a healing session and the next day I got Back Stage, where I found a voice
teacher and a performance coach, and was on my way."

Fordyce has been a stay-at-home mom to three children, an administrative assistant and a pet-
sitter. About 10 years ago, the flexibility that came with taking care of assorted Fidos and
Fluffys returned her focus to music.

"I was able to go out and hustle a few gigs and start a CD," she says. "It took three years of
saving nickles and dimes to get into the studio for all of two days."
The "studio" was really a tiny, Upper West Side apartment. Stuffed with coats and blankets for
makeshift soundproofing, the vocal booth allowed just enough room for Fordyce to spin around
in place.
Craning her neck to peer through the booth's small window, she could see either the pianist
and bassist from one angle or the drummer from another.
The first song she recorded was "Almost Like Being in Love" from the musical "Brigadoon," and
she loved every cramped minute of the experience.
"I remember listening to the piano player do a solo and, at first, just starting to giggle, and then
starting to laugh out loud, and then bursting out crying, because it was like, 'Oh, my God, I'm
doing this! I've been wanting to do this since I was 3,'" she says.

With some reworking, that recording became the seventh track on her debut album,
"Something Still Cool" — but, due to problems with funding, re-recording and some studio
personnel — eight years would pass before she completed and released the CD.
With the help of promoters, word spread of the septuagenarian's first album. Fordyce was
floored by the positive response.

"Within a week, we had our first feedback and it didn't stop; it was unbelievable," she says. "I
sat here reading e-mails at my computer and crying."

She immediately started work on her second CD. In attempt to re-create the sound of a live
concert at the Jazz Gallery in Tribeca, she rented a private loft in the East Village. A year later,
she released "Songs Spun of Gold," which earned the six Grammy pre-noms.

It all finally seems to be coming together for Fordyce. She'll perform Thursday at The Pizza Place
in Yonkers, and celebrate the CD release party for "Songs Spun of Gold" at The Metropolitan
Room in New York City.

Around the time that she released that album, she relocated from Manhattan to Yonkers,
researching neighborhoods until she found an apartment she liked.
"And then there was a statue of Ella Fitzgerald in the park by the train station," she says. "I said,
'Hey! I'm in the right place!'"\\