âIâm still speechless,â 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 couldnât 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. âI just got back to work, doing what, in essence, got me the Grammy in the first place,â she says.
Joyâs new Verve Records release, Portrait, is the proper follow-up to Linger Awhile, her 2022 breakthrough LP, and it represents the next phase in her continuing artistic evolution â unbound by expectations.
Portrait documents the immersive, seemingly telepathic rapport sheâs developed with her touring band, which includes musicians she learned the jazz craft alongside while earning her undergraduate degree; in fact, it wasnât until college that Joy began to pursue jazz singing. On the strength of that cozy dynamic â on the road, "I'm among friends, which explains personal chemistry that translates to our live performances,â 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 Palmieriâs most vital late-career collaborator and was a member of the final lineup of Art Blakeyâs Jazz Messengers. The album was tracked in streamlined sessions â just two or three takes of each tune â at one of jazzâs most hallowed sites, Van Gelder Studio. âWith this kind of band,â Joy says, âwe play very close together on stage,â so the singer and Lynch recreated that vibe in the studio. The band recorded all together in that same fantastic room, feeding off each otherâs energy as they would at a fiery live show. âIt was the perfect place to capture this sound in its entirety,â Joy says.
Lynch, Joy raves, allowed her and the band to remain âin the driverâs seat, acting as our very supportive co-pilot.â The singer and her co-producer bonded over Abbey Lincolnâs 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, âshowed me what my role could be, and opened my ears to what was possible.â
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. âIâm often the fifth voice,â she says, âthe fifth horn. I just love the sound of this band. Hopefully, when people hear it theyâll realize that Iâm a musician too.â
Highlighting Joyâs generous, all-for-one strategy as a leader â an influence she gleaned from Art Blakey and Max Roach â Portrait boasts a uniquely synergistic approach to arranging. "I enjoy collaborating with fresh musical voices,â Joy says of her band, âbecause 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.â Joy took the ever-evolving highlights from her concert songbook and gave them to individual band members to arrange, based on each playerâs gifts and personality.
Portrait is also Joyâs most profound expression yet of her prowess as a songwriter â particularly as a lyricist of absolute poetic precision. Itâs 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 âReincarnation of a Lovebird (Pursuit of a Dream),â Joy weds Charles Mingusâ tender tribute to Charlie Parker to her own mediation on, as she describes it, âlove so strong that itâs surreal.â âPeace of Mind/Dreams Come Trueâ matches Joyâs 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. âNow and Then (In Remembrance OfâŠ)â features Joyâs affecting words atop music by the late, great bebop sage Barry Harris, with whom Joy and McCallister studied. âItâs for Barry,â Joy says, âbut itâs also for everybody in my life who is no longer here and yet I want to keep thinking of them, keep them present.â
Still, as might be expected given Joyâs track record with classic tunes, some of Portraitâs most impressive moments are the standards: Jason Charosâ arrangements of âYou Stepped Out of a Dreamâ and âNo More Bluesâ (an exuberant palate cleanser on which Joy sings Jon Hendricksâ lyrics); McCallisterâs take on âAutumn Nocturneâ; David Masonâs âDay by Day.â Donavan Austinâs original âA Fool in Love (Is Called a Clown)â 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, âIâm grateful to have so many tools at my disposal.â
Ultimately, though, Portrait is a masterwork that unspools the story of an ensemble â a band that coalesced as friends and student musicians and has continued developing through jazz stardom. âItâs just everything that I could have ever dreamed of in a band,â Joy says. âI hope we stay together for years to come. I really do.â