Encore performance

When Needham vocalist JoJo David performs in concert at Boston College on Thursday, it will be a milestone in a long and sometimes difficult road back to being a performing artist.

Not long ago, it looked like a moment that would never come.

In the summer of 1998, David had his life arranged just the way he wanted. A former member of the popular a cappella group Five O'Clock Shadow, he had been happily married and living in Newton for two years, was finishing a master's degree in jazz composition, and had two jobs he loved, as vocal director of BC bOp! jazz ensemble at Boston College and family Mass music leader for the Church of St. Ignatius in Chestnut Hill.

One night he woke up vomiting, and when it was over, his voice had mysteriously been reduced to a whisper. He couldn't speak, let alone sing. He had cancer, and suddenly that well-arranged life was turned upside down.

''I just wanted to be alive," said David, who is now 38. ''If I'm alive and I'm voiceless, it's almost like getting my leg amputated for the sake of living. If surviving is going to cost me my voice, I'll choose surviving."

Oncologists tackled his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with several rounds of chemotherapy. The grapefruit-size tumor in his chest receded, then began growing again. It also kept squeezing his damaged laryngeal nerve, which had paralyzed a vocal cord.

While his doctors mapped out a new treatment strategy, David sought opinions on his future as a vocalist. After seeing Dr. Steven Zeitels, a groundbreaking laryngologist who had treated singers Julie Andrews and Steven Tyler, David had the impression that he had probably sung his last note.

''He did everything. He took pictures, he stimulated the nerve electronically. Nothing," David said. ''He was talking about surgically repairing [the vocal cord]."

But Zeitels pointed out that the cancer should be the first priority.

David then spent countless days and hours at hospitals, receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments. His medical team was considering riskier procedures, and hope of success was waning.

A piece of good news arrived in February 1999, when David's vocal tone started to slowly reappear.

''A single pitch came back to me one day. I would hum like a monk on that pitch," David said. ''Each day I would add a pitch above and below, and keep doing it, and eventually it came back."

The voice was back, but the cancer was hanging on. Finally, David's doctors made their last attempt to eradicate the illness by conducting a perilous bone marrow transplant, a procedure that left him exhausted for months. The transplant worked -- 100 days later, the doctors declared him cancer-free.

A year after his diagnosis, David returned to a normal work schedule at his two jobs. But aside from singing at St. Ignatius, and later as director of music at Sacred Heart Church in Newton Centre, he shied away from his own performance.

It wasn't until beginning a collaboration with New York-based jazz pianist Adam Birnbaum, a former member of BC bOp!, that David found an environment that felt comfortable for musical exploration.

''With Adam, I feel I can drop all my academic understanding of the music and get back to when I was a kid," David said. ''We truly speak to each other through the music. And he just happens to have tremendous chops."

The first product of their collaboration is the just-released duo CD ''Small Hours." The collection of 10 ballads reveals David and Birnbaum as master arrangers, unafraid to reinvent jazz standards like ''But Beautiful" and pop tunes such as the Beatles' ''Golden Slumbers."

David's colleague, BC director of bands Sebastian Bonaiuto, said he was not surprised to hear the quietness and slow tempos of ''Small Hours."

''It makes complete sense," said Bonaiuto. ''It's completely consistent with the journey that JoJo's been on. . . . There is without a doubt a serenity, a calm, a subtlety that's all a part of who JoJo is."

Bonaiuto played a key role in helping David stay connected to music during the period when he lost his voice. When David told Bonaiuto he was sick and that he didn't think he would be able to lead all of his student rehearsals, Bonaiuto insisted that he remain on the faculty and come to campus whenever he felt well enough.

''I don't know a single musician who would be able to tell you what life would be like without music," Bonaiuto said. ''To see JoJo continue with his treatment and recovery and fulfill part of his life's mission was a blessing."

Staying connected to the spiritual community at St. Ignatius was also critical to David's recovery. Members of the parish took turns preparing and delivering meals to David and his wife, Anne Marie. Parishioners, along with other friends, also encouraged David to continue to send e-mail messages about his recovery to a list that eventually grew to 160 names.

For David, writing the e-mails helped him explore the emotional terrain of his illness, and according to the pastor at St. Ignatius, Robert VerEeck, the e-mail updates acted as a ''prayer wheel" for all readers, and began a trend.

''Using the technology to connect people for prayer became a model for other people in the community who were suffering," said VerEeck.

But what sustained him the most, David said, was his wife, who gave birth to their first child, a daughter, last October.

''Our future is a reason to live," he said. ''Our present is a reason to live. If I didn't have the ability to say 'us' and 'we' and 'our,' I think some of the darkest moments might have been twice as dark."

JoJo David and Adam Birnbaum will perform at Robsham Theater at Boston College at 8:15 p.m. Thursday. Tickets are $15. The CD, ''Small Hours," is available on the Web at www.jojodavid.com.