Five-time Grammy Award-winning jazz artist Samara Joy comes from a family of musicians, with her dad being a bass player and her grandparents who led a Philadelphia-based gospel group. Ahead of her show in Charlotte next week, WFAE’s Elvis Menayese spoke with the Bronx native, who only started singing jazz a few years ago at the age of 18.
She spoke about her approach to music, bringing jazz to a younger generation, and how she brings new life to old standards.
Samara Joy: Music was a big part of not only my experience in New York but just in my house — like hearing my dad write songs in his home studio, hearing my family sing together on their recorded albums, their songs, their demos. So, growing up in New York — but especially in my family's, you know, the way that my family is built or set up, it's founded upon our love for music.
Elvis Menayese: Since picking up the genre, you’ve gone on to receive Grammy Awards, including ‘Best Jazz Vocal Album for "Linger Awhile." The song "Can’t Get Out of This Mood" is one of the tracks that stood out to me. It’s a classic jazz standard covered by the likes of Sarah Vaughan, a jazz singer who performed in the 1940s and '50s. So, how do you bring your own flavor to the song while still maintaining some of its roots?
Joy: I felt like I could sing it differently from how it was recorded by coming up with a different arrangement compared to the recording, and so I would just naturally sort of sing it in a different way and take advantage of the space in a different way.
Menayese: What does singing it in a different way mean, then? How do you do that?
Joy: It could mean a couple of different thing — like rhythmically, Sarah Vaughan seems to sing it exactly how it was, pretty much exactly how it was written, but maybe I'll sing shorter phrases instead of, like, holding out every single phrase super long and, you know, elegant and operatically even. I'll sing shorter phrases to sort of interact with the band and give them space to fill in.
Menayese: On your latest album, "Portrait," there’s a song titled "No More Blues" that sounds like it was really fun to produce. What emotions went through you as you recorded the song, and what’s the meaning behind it?
Joy: The emotion behind it was just wanting to make it as energetic as we do live in the studio. So there's never a gap between the energy that we bring, whether there's a live audience there or not. So yeah, the story behind it is just I love Brazilian music, that is a song called "Chega De Saudade," written by Antônio Carlos Jobim, and the English lyrics are written by a wonderful lyricist named Jon Hendricks, who is very popular and well-known in the sort of jazz genre. So, the point of it was really just to bring energy and sort of put our own twist, our own spin, and interpretation on the song.
Menayese: At the age of 25, you’ve been described as the person who’s "bringing jazz to Gen Z." Part of it is tied to you having over 1 million followers across two of your social media sites. Did you ever envision you’d play a role in introducing the genre to your generation?
Joy: Never.
Menayese: You shake your head.
Joy: Only because I just didn't know much about it myself when I got into it. I really was just focused on learning — learning more about it, and learning what I liked about it — and trying my best to be the best student possible that I could be.
Menayese: How do you hope jazz evolves so it can stay meaningful and connect with a younger crowd?
Joy: I'm in Harlem right now. There used to be clubs just lining the block — like door to door to door to door. And that has faded. Maybe it's because of money, landlords, and rent, and just, you know, people want apartment buildings rather than jazz clubs or places like that.
But hopefully, a combination of musicians who have a passion for it, no matter what environment or situation they're in, combined with the actual market. But I think it's going to move forward. I think it's going to grow no matter what. As long as there are musicians who are alive playing it, it's going to grow.
Jazz artist Samara Joy is set to perform at the Belk Theater on May 7.
