Samara Joy – Portrait

Samara Joy hat dieses Jahr zwei Grammys gewonnen. Wenn man ihre Stimme hört,

weiß man sofort, warum.

SWR, 2023

 

Beeindruckend, wie diese außergewöhnliche Sängerin mit ihrem dunklen Timbre, ihrer großen Eleganz und ihrem natürlichen Selbstbewusstsein die Songs mit neuem Leben erfüllt.

NDR, 2023

„Ich bin noch immer sprachlos“, sagt Samara Joy über ihren Grammy-Gewinn als Beste neue Künstlerin 2023. Wenn die in der Bronx aufgewachsene 24-jährige Sängerin sich an den Moment zurückerinnert, empfindet sie zunächst einmal „nichts als Dankbarkeit“. Nach der Auszeichnung tat Samara genau das Richtige, das was jeder ewig neugierige Jazzmusiker getan hätte: sie machte sich auf den weiteren Weg. Für sie und ihre Band stand eine endlose Reihe ausverkaufter Tourdaten an. Zusammen mit den ebenso jungen, ebenso talentierten Kollegen gab sie Konzerte rund um den Globus und verfeinerte und vertiefte den gemeinsamen Swing, Groove und Spirit. Wer das Glück hatte, das Ensemble live zu erleben, stimmte in den Lobgesang der Medien ein.

Wie perfekt Samara Joy und ihre Band sich aufeinander eingespielt haben und welch musikalische Höhen sie inzwischen erklimmen, zeigt das im Februar 2024 in den legendären Van Gelder Studios aufgenommene neue Album „Portrait“, eine Sammlung von Standards, Originalen und drei Jazz-Instrumentals von Charles Mingus, Sun Ra und Barry Harris, für die Samara exklusive Lyrics verfasste. Das am 10. Oktober erscheinende Album kündigt sie mit dem Song “You Stepped Out Of A Dream” an, einer sommerlich-lateinamerikanisch swingenden Version des bekannten Jazz-Standards. Samara und Band bei der traumwandlerisch sicheren Arbeit im Studio zu beobachten, ist beeindruckend.

1. You Stepped Out Of A Dream 4:35

Music: Nacio Herb Brown / Lyrics: Gus Kahn

2. Reincarnation Of A Lovebird 6:28

Music: Charles Mingus / Lyrics: Samara Joy

3. Autumn Nocturne 3:47

Music: Josef Myrow / Lyrics: Kim Gannon

4. Peace Of Mind / Dreams Come True 7:06

Music + Lyrics: Samara Joy / Kendric McCallister Music + Lyrics by Sun Ra / Jae Mayo

5. A Fool In Love (Is Called A Clown) 4:48

Music + Lyrics: Donavan Austin

6. No More Blues 5:46

Music: Antonio Carlos Jobim / Lyrics: Vinícius de Moraes / Jon Hendricks

7. Now And Then (In Remembrance Of…) 6:28

Music: Barry Harris / Lyrics: Samara Joy

8. Day By Day 4:58

Music: Axel Stordahl / Paul Weston / Lyrics: Sammy Cahn

 

Vocals: Samara Joy / Trumpet & Flugelhorn: Jason Charos / Alto Saxophone & Flute: David Mason

Tenor Saxophone: Kendric McCallister / Trombone: Donavan Austin

Piano: Conor Rohrer / Bass: Felix Moseholm / Drums: Evan Sherman

Arranged by Jason Charos (1/6), Kendric McCallister (2/3/7), Evan Sherman/David Mason (4),

Donavan Austin (5), David Mason (8) / Produced by Brian Lynch & Samara Joy

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, by Maureen Sickler

INFO

“I’m still speechless,” says Samara Joy, reflecting on her 2023 Grammy win for “Best New Artist”. When the Bronx-raised jazz vocalist, 24, tries to place herself back in that historic moment today, she feels nothing but gratitude.

At the same time, Joy understood then that she couldn’t let the award define her. She still had a lifetime of music to explore, a tight-knit crew of extraordinary collaborators to guide, and a passion for songwriting to nurture. So Joy did what any committed, eternally curious jazz musician would do: She hit the road. For her and her band, a seemingly endless run of sold-out tour dates became a nightly opportunity to reach new creative heights. “I just got back to work, doing what, in essence, got me the Grammy in the first place,” she says.

Joy’s new Verve Records release, “Portrait”, is the proper follow-up to “Linger Awhile”, her 2022 breakthrough album, and it represents the next phase in her continuing artistic evolution – unbound by expectations. “Portrait“ documents the immersive, seemingly telepathic rapport she’s developed with her touring band, which includes musicians she learned the jazz craft alongside while earning her undergraduate degree; in fact, it wasn’t until college that Joy began to pursue jazz singing. On the strength of that cozy dynamic — on the road, „I’m among friends, which explains personal chemistry that translates to our live performances,” Joy says. The vocalist offers an album that both honors jazz heritage while staking out bold, singular territory. Whatever a rote, singer-with-sidemen record is, „Portrait“ is not.

Joy co-produced „Portrait“ with fellow multiple Grammy winner Brian Lynch, a trumpeter and musical director who has been Eddie Palmieri’s most vital late-career collaborator and was a member of the final lineup of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. The album was tracked in streamlined sessions – just two or three takes of each tune – at one of jazz’s most hallowed sites, Van Gelder Studio. “With this kind of band,” Joy says, “we play very close together on stage,” so the singer and Lynch recreated that vibe in the studio. The band recorded all together in that same fantastic room, feeding off each other’s energy as they would at a fiery live show. “It was the perfect place to capture this sound in its entirety,” Joy says.

Lynch, Joy raves, allowed her and the band to remain “in the driver’s seat, acting as our very supportive co-pilot.” The singer and her co-producer bonded over Abbey Lincoln’s 1961 LP „Straight Ahead“, on which the daring singer becomes brilliantly enmeshed in a band comprising Max Roach, Booker Little, Eric Dolphy, Coleman Hawkins, Julian Priester and other greats. That recording, Joy says, “showed me what my role could be, and opened my ears to what was possible.”

As on that vocal-jazz touchstone, Joy is best heard here as an integral part of an egalitarian octet featuring trumpeter Jason Charos, saxophonists David Mason and Kendric McCallister, trombonist Donavan Austin, pianist Connor Rohrer, bassist Felix Moseholm and drummer Evan Sherman. She soars above and out front, of course, but also functions as a pure instrument and a source of support and interplay. “I’m often the fifth voice,” she says, “the fifth horn. I just love the sound of this band. Hopefully, when people hear it they’ll realize that I’m a musician too.”

Highlighting Joy’s generous, all-for-one strategy as a leader – an influence she gleaned from Art Blakey and Max Roach – “Portrait” boasts a uniquely synergistic approach to arranging. „I enjoy collaborating with fresh musical voices,” Joy says of her band, “because it not only helps all involved grow but helps to expand how musicians and audiences alike hear this music and what’s to come. So I wanted to put these creative minds in one place to expand the music and, as a result, each other.” Joy took the ever-evolving highlights from her concert songbook and gave them to individual band members to arrange, based on each player’s gifts and personality.

„Portrait” is also Joy’s most profound expression yet of her prowess as a songwriter – particularly as a lyricist of absolute poetic precision. It’s an inspired, surprising program that serves as a reminder of how the vocal-jazz repertoire can still break new ground while nodding to jazz history. On “Reincarnation of a Lovebird (Pursuit of a Dream),” Joy weds Charles Mingus’ tender tribute to Charlie Parker to her own mediation on, as she describes it, “love so strong that it’s surreal.” “Peace of Mind/Dreams Come True” matches Joy’s first original song and saxophonist Kendric McCallister, which unpacks the anxieties Joy felt in her post-Grammy moment, with the gratitude and cosmic optimism of Sun Ra. “Now and Then (In Remembrance Of…)” features Joy’s affecting words atop music by the late, great bebop sage Barry Harris, with whom Joy and McCallister studied. “It’s for Barry,” Joy says, “but it’s also for everybody in my life who is no longer here and yet I want to keep thinking of them, keep them present.”

Still, as might be expected given Joy’s track record with classic tunes, some of the albums most impressive moments are the standards: Jason Charos’ arrangements of “You Stepped Out of a Dream” and “No More Blues” (an exuberant palate cleanser on which Joy sings Jon Hendricks’ lyrics); McCallister’s take on “Autumn Nocturne”; David Mason’s “Day by Day.” Donavan Austin’s original “A Fool in Love (Is Called a Clown)” is so delightfully sentimental it might as well be a standard.

Throughout, Joy sounds divine, evoking her jazz idols while tapping into her rich background in a family of gospel and R&B renown. Or as Joy puts it simply, “I’m grateful to have so many tools at my disposal.”

Ultimately, though, „Portrait“ is a masterwork that unspools the story of an ensemble – a band that coalesced as friends and student musicians and has continued developing through jazz stardom. “It’s just everything that I could have ever dreamed of in a band,” Joy says. “I hope we stay together for years to come. I really do.”

BIOGRAPHY

A native of the Bronx, Samara Joy became entranced by classic R&B as a child and cut her teeth as a singer in her church’s gospel choir. And while her family history is deeply musical – her grandparents helmed the Philadelphia gospel group the Savettes, and her father, the musician and songwriter Antonio McLendon, has produced, composed and arranged his own astounding original work – she didn’t delve into the jazz tradition until college at SUNY Purchase.

During her studies there she won the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, which introduced her to the larger jazz scene as a rising star to watch. She was heard, by audiences and critics alike, as a masterful interpreter of jazz standards and a rightful heiress of the sound, technique and charisma that defined her jazz heroines – including Vaughan, Betty Carter, Abbey Lincoln and Carmen McRae.

Joy released her self-titled debut on the Whirlwind label in 2021, followed a year later by „Linger Awhile“, her breakout Verve debut, of which DownBeat said, “With this beautiful recording, a silky-voiced star is born.” The album earned her a Grammy for „Best Jazz Vocal Album“ in addition to a headline-making win for “Best New Artist”. A deluxe edition of the album was released, as well as the EP „A Joyful Holiday“.

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