SAMARA JOY

THE STEREOPHILE INTERVIEW

- KEN MICALLEF

23-YEAR-OLD SAMARA JOY IS THE RECIPIENT OF THE 2023 GRAMMY AWARDS FOR BEST NEW ARTIST AND BEST JAZZ VOCAL ALBUM. HER 2022 SOPHOMORE OUTING, LINGER AWHILE (VERVE), IS A JUBILANT CELEBRATION OF THE AMERICAN SONGBOOK. HER WARM, VELVET-DARK VOCAL TONE, GRACEFUL SWING SENSE, AND INTUITIVE INTERPRETATIONS PROVIDE A MASTER CLASS IN CLASSIC JAZZ FUNDAMENTALS.

Joy owns the past but also the present. On her TikTok channel, "Samarajoysings," she has accumulated 585,100 Followers and 4.3 million Likes. The channel documents performances of such standards as "A Foggy Day," "Guess Who I Saw Today," an a capella "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and a sublime "Round Midnight," delivered in multi-octave glory. Old and new, together.

Read that last bit again, about TikTok. That Joy is popular with jazz fans will surprise no one who has heard her music. That she has won such a following on a platform dominated by 10-19-year-olds mainly by singing 70-year-old songs-boggles the mind.

Even as many jazz writers, labels, and magazines seem to have thrown in the towel on attracting the jazz-unwashed masses to jazz, Joy has captured the hearts and minds of their children with a style inspired by Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter, Carmen McRae, and, to a lesser degree, Billie Holiday. We wonder what it takes to reach younger audiences; maybe what it takes is the right artist.

One listen to Linger Awhile makes it clear that Joy is a generational talent, most closely resembling a young Ella Fitzgerald. Music courses through her 5'4" frame like a force of nature; she contains and guides it, yielding bliss, exhilaration, and-yes-joy.