CAPE MAY CONVENTION HALL / SUNDAY, MAY 18 / 3:00pm
The Story
The first time that Samara Joy came to Cape May to perform at the Exit Zero Jazz Festival (in the Fall of 2021), she was accompanied by a trio led by guitarist Pasquale Grasso. This time out, in her third appearance at the biannual gathering on the very southern tip of New Jersey, the Bronx-born singer will be accompanied by an octet, performing lavishly appointed music from her acclaimed third album, Portrait.
With three Grammy wins and a chart-topping debut album already under her belt, the 25-year-old vocal sensation continues to amaze fans and jazz scribes alike with her timeless charms.
Veteran music critic Will Friedwald put it best when he wrote in the liner notes to her 2021 self-titled debut: “Samara’s voice and her music seem to belong to all time, like she’s connected to the entire history of jazz all at once – as if she were existing in every era simultaneously, she sounds both classic and contemporary.”
That is an apt description of the spell that Samara weaves with her velvety voice and refined, nuanced delivery that belies her young age. The New York Times praised Joy for “helping jazz take a youthful turn” while NPR’s All Things Considered called her a “classic jazz singer from a new generation.” Adoring fans and jazz cognoscenti alike have compared her rich voice and elegant stage presence to the likes of such classic jazz divas as Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Betty Carter.
Raised in a musical family, her grandparents, Elder Goldwire and Ruth McLendon, led the well-known Philadelphia-based gospel group, The Savettes, while her father toured with gospel star Andrae Crouch. Samara’s earliest influences came from gospel music and the R&B sounds of Stevie Wonder, Lalah Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan. She fell in love with jazz while attending Fordham High School for the Arts, where she performed regularly with the jazz band and eventually won Best Vocalist at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition. She later attended SUNY Purchase, winning the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition as a college junior majoring in jazz studies. As WBGO’s Keanna Faircloth reported on that event at NJPAC: “It was clear that she was channeling the regal spirit of Sarah Vaughan. The ease with which she scatted, coupled with her natural poise and grace beyond her years, was eerily reminiscent of the Divine One.”
Following her graduation from Purchase as an Ella Fitzgerald Memorial Scholar, Samara made a big splash at the 2020 Newport Jazz Festival and subsequently appeared at the Fall 2021 edition of the Exit Zero Jazz Festival. She has continued to put her own sophisticated stamp on the Great American Songbook, imbuing timeless standards like “Misty,” “Stardust,” “I’m Confessin’,” “But Beautiful,” “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “’Round Midnight” with uncanny poise and deep soul, securing her status as perhaps the first Gen Z jazz vocal star. As Verve president Jamie Krents said of the preternaturally gifted Joy, “She’s just a normal 25-year-old person who happens to be a world-class singer.”
Or as bassist-bandleader-producer Christian McBride told the New York Times, “It’s spooky; she sounds and tells a story like an elder. But I think what I love most about her — and I pray that the challenges in life don’t change this — is she’s always positive. She’s got such a fun, positive spirit.”
The Sound
With her velvety smooth voice and her natural ability to deliver lyrics with remarkable ease, Samara Joy makes age-old standards like “But Beautiful,” “Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be),” “Stardust,” “Everything Happens to Me” and “Moonglow” come to life with a newfound vibrancy that has earned her fans like singers Anita Baker, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson. Regina King described Joy’s abundant vocal gifts this way: “It just seems like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald are living in her body.”
Samara continues to weave her spell on Portrait. From gorgeous ballads like the standard “Autumn Nocturne” and her own dynamic “Peace of Mind/Dreams Come True” (co-written with her octet’s saxophonist Kendric McCallister), to alluring bossa nova flavored numbers like Gus Kahn’s “You Stepped Out of a Dream” and Jobim’s “No More Blues,” and all-out swingers like “Day By Day,” she imbues each tune with rare commitment and organic integrity. As she said, “I think maybe people connect with the fact that I’m not faking it, that I already feel embedded in it,” said Samara. “Maybe I’m able to reach people in person and on social media because it’s real.”
Putting her own lyrics to tunes by pianist and mentor Barry Harris (“Now and Then”) and iconic bassist-composer-bandleader Charles Mingus (“Reincarnation of a Lovebird”) is just an added touch to the myriad talents that Samara displays on her third release under her own name.
