What do Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Megan Thee Stallion and Olivia Rodrigo all have in common?
They won the Grammy for Best New Artist directly before Samara Joy took the crown in 2023.
This Wednesday, the modern jazz icon releases “You Stepped Out of a Dream,” the first single off her new album “Portrait,” just days before performing with her new octet at The Anthem on Friday night at the D.C. Jazz Festival.
“I’ve never been to The Anthem before, so I’m looking forward to my debut,” Joy told WTOP. “It’s eight of us total, doing arrangements to hidden standards that I love but also jazz compositions that I put lyrics to, kind of like an incubator for cultivating my dream of what a group like this would sound like. It’s four horns: trombone, trumpet, alto sax and tenor sax, then piano, bass and drums. I’m really looking forward to hearing people’s response.”
Born in the Bronx, New York, in 1999, Joy admits that she didn’t listen to much jazz growing up.
“I didn’t start listening to jazz until college,” Joy said. “Growing up, I was pretty much an ‘old head.’ My parents introduced me to a lot of Motown, soul and R&B, as well as gospel. That’s kind of the area that I was most comfortable in as far as listening. I had a mini iPod Nano that surprisingly fit all of that music on there, in addition to some pop stuff here and there, but definitely sticking to my parents’ generation for sure.”
Her big break came when she won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition in 2019.
“It was definitely a big turning point because, at that point, I had only been listening to jazz and really studying it for two and a half years,” Joy said. “Getting the opportunity to compete was exciting enough for me because I hadn’t really been performing publicly at that time, I was just strictly doing school. So to compete and then to win was definitely a big introduction to this whole new world that I hadn’t really been a part of or known before.”
In fact, one of the judges of the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition helped her invest the prize money — combined with a Go Fund Me campaign and a viral video on Facebook — to produce her self-titled debut album “Samara Joy” (2021) — all while she was still a student studying at SUNY’s Purchase College.
Her second album “Linger Awhile” (2022) won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album the year after Esperanza Spalding’s victory, as well as the Grammy for Best New Artist, defeating powerhouses like Molly Tuttle.
“Pretty freaking crazy,” Joy said. “I wasn’t prepared at all to make a speech, I just wasn’t, because I just didn’t expect to be chosen among that group of wonderful and very popular artists. I don’t really remember it, I just remember my family was there, we got an Airbnb in Beverly Hills and they were super excited to be in a mansion for the first time, so I was just really grateful. It doesn’t seem like it’s real or that it actually happened.”
Since then, she has released the albums “Linger Awhile Longer” (2023) and “A Joyful Holiday” (2023), not to mention the digitally-released single “Tight,” which won her yet another Grammy for Best Jazz Performance.
“That experience was a lot more chill actually because it was the nontelevised category,” Joy said. “The only reason I was a part of the televised category was to announce the next Best New Artist as a passing of the torch. … They phased out Best Instrumental Solo to Best Jazz Performance, that was the first time this category had ever been announced and I won, so it was nice. I’m trying not to be greedy. Maybe I won’t go back next year.”
Of course she’s joking. If the rest of her new album “Portrait” is even half as good as Wednesday’s aforementioned new single “You Stepped Out of a Dream,” there’s a good chance that the Grammys will be inviting her back.
Listen to our full conversation on the podcast below:
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