Something STILL Cool with Jim Malloy $2.03

About Something STILL Cool with Jim Malloy

(Scott Yanow, from Liner Notes)

While listening to the music on this CD, which consists of thoughtful renditions of 13 standards, two questions come immediately to mind. How can the singer possibly be 70 when her voice can pass for 40? And where has she been all of this time?

The second question is easier to answer than the first. After an early start as a singer, Elli Fordyce took time off to have a family before returning for 10 years of touring and performing all over the United States and the nearby area in a countless number of settings. A serious
car accident contributed to her decision to stop singing
for a long period of time, but now she is back and in
prime form.

Elli has a very attractive style, putting a lot of feeling into the lyrics she interprets while always swinging; her phrasing is quite infectious. Joined by some of her favorite musicians (including the tasteful pianist Harry Whitaker and occasional contributions from Joe Magnarelli on flugelhorn) and including five charming vocal duets with Jim Malloy, she has finally made her recording debut with Something STILL Cool. Her versions of such songs as "When Sunny Gets Blue," "Don't Blame Me," "It Could Happen To You," a touching "Something Cool" and her duet with Malloy on "Almost Like Being In Love" are among the highlights although every selection has much to offer. Although I can hear a bit of Anita O'Day in spots, Elli has her own sound and approach, making each song sound like her own.

As for the initial question, the only answer I can come up with is that this CD is evidence that jazz keeps one young.

[Scott Yanow, jazz journalist and author of nine books on jazz including Jazz On Film, Jazz On Record 1917-76 and Trumpet Kings]

In addition to NY radio, native-New-Yorker Elli Fordyce’s earliest exposure to jazz was at the jam sessions of best buddy and then-drummer Bobby ("Darin") Cassatto, 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 Education, she and fellow-student/musician Randy Fordyce helped form a jazz quartet. The next 14 years often found Elli "on-the-road," learning and plying her craft. From cruises to Playboy Clubs, hotels to restaurants or in concerts, in the U.S. and Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other islands, she sang –- sometimes jazz, more often pop –- in cover-, lounge- and show-groups which she fronted and EmCeed.

That phase ended on a snowy highway en route to a gig in Illinois when their drummer drove her car containing the band and gear into a disabled truck, haulting a year’s tour by "Elli Fordyce And Her Favorite Things." Focusing firmly on needed physical and spiritual healing, even tossing out a four-foot stack of sheet music and fake books, she stopped singing for 15 years ("not even 'Happy Birthday,' not even in the shower").

After naming her Yorkie puppy "Dindi" (meaning "little jewel" in Portuguese) -- the title of Elli's favorite Jobim bossa nova -- she would sing the tune to the ginger-colored pup which soon inspired Elli's return to her first love: jazz. During a cabaret workshop taught by brilliant MAC-Award-winning artist Lina Koutrakos, Elli heard of renowned jazz pianist/magical educator Barry Harris's classes. Barry, her long-sought jazz guru, put Elli squarely on the path and made a comeback inevitable.

She has since performed in the NY-Metro area, doing "a tune here, a run there, a show or event somewhere else," including the Town Hall Cabaret Convention. She's trained in acting and voiceover, taken performance workshops and studied voice, music theory and jazz improv. Her first record a reality and one in-the-works, Elli also acts in films and on TV, has interviewed artists co-hosting a local TV show and was in "Guys and Dolls" off-Broadway. To quote her, "It’s never too late!"