At 23, the young American jazz singer, twice awarded at the Grammy Awards, has become a star for musical performances on social networks, in particular TikTok.
The young American jazz singer Samara Joy, winner of two Grammy Awards in February including that of revelation of the year, will receive the Jazz Vocal Prize from the Jazz Academy on Sunday in Paris. The 23-year-old African-American must previously give two concerts in Meudon and Vincennes, in the Paris suburbs, on Wednesday and Saturday.
She must also take part in several French festivals this summer, including Jazz in Marciac on July 27. A new vocal jazz sensation, Samara Joy released her second album in October, Linger Awhiledistributed by the Verve label, on which she sublimates standards including Misty, Round Midnight or Someone to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KId7H4bvBjE
“This second album confirms all the good that we could think of her”, said François Lacharme, president of the Jazz Academy. “She has enormous ease, has a fairly wide range and, for her, the difficult intervals are like a hurdle race without hurdles”, compare the one who already sees it as “a candidate for the throne”.
“Samara Joy is a little bit the best of three worlds: you have a bit of the timbre of a young Betty Carter, a form of ease and ingenuity, an enormous vocal flexibility which comes more under the influence of Ella Fitzgerald , and a way to make your voice bend, to be very playful with the melody that makes you think of Sarah Vaughan”
François Lacharme, President of the Jazz Academyat AFP
The young woman grew up in the Bronx, New York, in a family of gospel and soul musicians. “She listened, and you can hear it, to gospel, rhythm’n blues, soul music”, analyzes François Lacharme.
Samara Joy, who also won the Grammy for Best Singing Jazz Album for Linger Awhile, was honored with a prize from the Sarah Vaughan International Singing Competition in 2019, after studying at Fordham High School for the Arts and Purchase College of New York University. After graduating, she became a star for musical performances on social networks, including TikTok. She has to her credit a tour in Europe and the United States, notably at the Monterey Jazz Festival.