September 9-15, 2004

musicpicks

Julia Fordham

by Nicole Pensiero

jazz

With her four-octave range, blonde good looks and penchant for smoky ballads, Julia Fordham should probably be a bigger star than she is. In fact, she's really not a star at all — though there was a time in the late '80s when she seemed headed in that direction, along with fellow Brit Lisa Stansfield.

Stansfield dropped off the popular music radar, but the California-based Fordham's still at it, "though it doesn't get any easier with each passing year," as the 42-year-old singer-songwriter puts it. "I don't fit a niche and I never really have," she says. "Unless you consider left-field, jazzy blue-eyed soul hybrid a niche."

Touring in support of her just-released Larry Klein-produced eighth album, the shimmering, simmering That's Life (Vanguard), Fordham still considers herself "extraordinarily privileged to do what I love to earn my living."

"I have a calling, I suppose," she says. "I definitely married my music. And the songs propel me forward." Fordham's a surprisingly engaging performer — approachable, and at times, downright silly — like when she invited a group of female Tin Angel fans to stand behind her onstage and snap their fingers — the "Philly clickers," she called them.

"I love being in front of people, seeing their faces," Fordham says, adding that she feels herself moving more into traditional jazz on future records. "I'm getting ready to croon like a true chanteuse — I think that might be the next thing."

Sat., Sept. 11, 7 p.m., $20, Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 215-928-0770.