Jazz brunch on Sunday mornings, kicking it old school Sunday nights. Dueting on a Wednesday, disco and soul on a Tuesday. Even if you’re just an occasional visitor to the Alibi in Wilton Manors, it’s almost impossible not to be familiar with the big voice and an even bigger personality of LeNora Jaye. A fixture there for seven years and a music career that stretches back decades, she’s one of the strongest and most recognizable voices on the South Florida music scene.

“Being able to do music, being musical in and of itself, there are times when I’m in awe of it,” she told me. “Since I’ve been here in South Florida I’ve transitioned from working in corporate to full time performer. Which is something I had dreamed of. A kind of far off dream but I couldn’t actually envision it. There are times now where I don’t even recognize my own life. I’ve worked at a nine to five job my whole life, and now it’s full time performing and I’m still in awe of it. It’s huge and just the way that it’s unfolded since I’ve been here is major.”

LeNora grew up in Brooklyn where she cut her chops on the city’s thriving indie music scene, and in her own home. “The love of music goes back so far and I inherited it from my parents. Being able to be a part of the music is inspiring and energizing,” she said. The road from NYC to South Florida has been long, and came with pit stops both physical and mental. She chilled in Atlanta for awhile, but it was not her scene. So eventually she got a gig on a cruise ship, which got her to our area very often. “Every time the ship would port in Port Everglades or Miami, I was like I love the energy in South Florida. When I worked for the City of New York I’d vacation in Pompano. And I’d say to my friend how come I don’t live here? She’d say, ‘Honey there are no jobs.’” But LeNora wasn’t having it. “I packed everything I owned in my car and came down to Florida.”

After arriving, the desire for a steady paycheck and health insurance led her away from music down here, but not for long. A friend told her to make a demo and send it to Alibi. “He made me do a video promo singing Patti LaBelle, Whitney Houston, Ella Fitzgerald, and all of them. I was like you’re crazy, I’ll just embarrass myself. But I did it and they contacted me and then a few months later I started with jazz brunch.”

From there more work came and she took the leap, quit her day job, and now does music full time. These days she’s doing Alibi’s Jazz Brunch every other Sunday, which has all of her favorite things. “Jazz is the first genre of music I loved. A culmination of all the fun things I like to do musically. There’s brunch, there’s mimosas, there’s singing with nice jazz music.”