Samara Joy Linger Awhile LP

TAS Rated 5/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the February 2023 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

The New York Times Best Jazz Albums of 2022 - Rated 6/10!
Fred Kaplan's The Best Jazz Albums of 2022 - Rated 10/10!
JazzTimes The Top 40 Jazz Albums of 2022 - Rated 15/40!
AnalogPlanet's Top Jazz Albums of 2022!

Simply put, Samara Joy is next. Her Verve debut shows that, at just 22 years old, with a voice, tone, and phrasing that harkens back to the most iconic jazz vocalists of all time, Samara belongs in the company of iconic label mates from Ella Fitzgerald to Sarah Vaughan to Billie Holiday. Samara is remarkably savvy on TikTok and Instagram, fostering a community of devoted followers fully through organic means. She is poised to be a household name, synonymous with timeless jazz music.

There's no second album syndrome to be found here. Samara Joy sings some of the best jazz music you can hear today.

'Linger Awhile' is a rite of passage: a by-the-book, here's-what-I-can-do major-label debut. Fortunately, Samara Joy's harmonic ideas are riveting enough and her voice so infectious that it doesn't feel like an exercise. On 'Nostalgia,' just try not to crack a smile at the lyrics she wrote to the melody of Fats Navarro's 1947 trumpet solo while you simply shake your head at her command.

Just 23, Samara Joy is the new young jazz singer, a child of the Bronx who grew up singing in church, glommed onto the jazz classics (Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday), and joined the caravan of tradition. She's old-school (in a good way), and hasn't yet developed her own sound, but her voice is smooth and gorgeous, she knows how to phrase a lyric for an effect, and she's backed by a first-class rhythm section including spicy Kenny Washington on drums.

Samara Joy's sophomore album authenticates the meteoric 22-year-old singer's prowess and seemingly natural style that prompts associations with Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Dinah Washington. Her lush, unpretentious alto doesn't require a great song to excel, but her warmth, sensitivity, and stalwart band accompaniment take command for well-known standards 'Guess Who I Saw Today,' 'Misty,' 'I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)' and ''Round Midnight.'

No bells or whistles here, just 10 straightforward small-group performances of compositions that are either well-known jazz standards or more obscure nuggets of similar vintage. Technically Joy is flawless, but there's something extra, something no musicologist will ever be able to explain, and that's the sense that Samara Joy was meant to be a jazz singer. You can't teach that, but you certainly can hear it. There's a deep sense of history throughout the record, but the performances never sound stale or academic. Instead, you hear evidence that jazz is a living, breathing art form.