Singing is such a big part of Dick Jordan’s life that even a question about his age is answered in song, specifically one involving trombones.

Jordan, who lives in Groton and goes by D.J., brings his love of singing to patients at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London. As a hospital volunteer, he goes around the fifth floor once a week, toting around an oxygen tank, and offers to sing to patients in the cardiac and rehabilitation units.

“I can take a few minutes from their day ... and take them away from where they are and everything they’re facing and put them to a happier place,” he said.

Jordan is one of about 300 volunteers at L+M who assist staff in more than 50 departments doing such task as transporting patients through the hospital, collecting hygiene data or delivering refreshments and magazines to the waiting areas.

He said he grew up in a musically talented family, where his brother, sister and parents sang and played a variety of instruments, but he was very shy as a kid. He credits his mother’s storytelling at the local library for giving him the confidence to perform.

“I can remember telling myself at age 8, ‘If she can do it, I can do it,’” he said. “She was a teacher, and when she got into a character, she just lost herself.”

Jordan has been a community singer and actor his whole life, and when he had to have heart surgery in 2002, he specifically asked his doctor how the surgery would affect his singing. His doctor had him return after the surgery to sing for him to test it out, and even though he’s been on oxygen for about three years, he said he won’t let his limitations bind him.

He came to L+M as a volunteer after singing for patients in convalescent homes, and he said he was a little hesitant at first because he wasn’t sure how patients would react.

“I’ve been amazed by the reaction of people, not only the patients but also their family members and friends who sometimes join right in and sing along,” he said. Other patients have joined in with percussion or even just a foot tap or head nod.

One patient, Michael Granata of New London, got a visit from Jordan just before he was discharged, and he and his girlfriend Cheryl Terranova sang along with Jordan’s renditions of “America the Beautiful” and the titular track from the musical “Cabaret.”

“It was a really nice parting gift,” Granata said.

Terranova said it was amazing that Jordan can sing so well despite being on oxygen.

Jordan said he gets a lot of comments about his oxygen tank. His doctors told him that singing will help him, and he can take breaks if he needs them during his three-hour shifts. He also sings in a jazz trio at the Steak Loft restaurant in Mystic, and he’ll sing with other musicians that volunteer at the hospital.

While patients that have seen him before will tell him to “go ahead, yodel away,” Jordan will flip through his color coded flashcards of lyrics to pick a song a new patient might like and turn it into a game. If he sings a show tune, such as the “Seventy-Six Trombones” rendition he sang to give his age, he’ll quiz the patient on which show it came from or who sang it.

“Many times with older people I see them close their eyes, and I know why,” he said. “They’re back in a memory bank where they heard the song too.”

Because of hygiene precautions, sometimes Jordan has to peek his head in the room and sing from the doorway, and some patients just aren’t in the mood for a song. Overall, however, he has a lot of support, especially from the staff, who give him recommendations on which patients to visit and even made him a special badge holder with a musical note decal.

Janice Cote, a patient from Voluntown, was serenaded by Jordan with “Consider Yourself,” and she said she enjoyed his visit.

“You’re doing a wonderful job,” she told him. “You make people smile.”

For more information on the volunteer program at L+M, contact Jamie Nadeau at (860) 860-442-0711, ext. 2475.

a.hutchinson@theday.com