Review | Samara Joy’s An Agile Young Songbird in Flight, with Hot Band in Tow

Samara Joy amply lives up to her name, in terms of joy given and joy embodied. Which is not to say that the young jazz vocalist sensation goes the easy route of feel-good manners or breezy musical living. As she proved to an SRO crowd at The Granada Theatre, in just the second event of the new UCSB Arts & Lectures season, this artist has an uncommonly deep gift and high ideals. And at a mere 25 years of age, Joy is already near the top of the crop of living jazz singers.

Joy has been dazzling the jazz scene, as such, for a handful of years, but another important aspect of her brilliant unfolding career is her almost evangelical expansion of her audience appeal into a wider spectrum of listeners. This phenomenon can partly be thanked for her winning the 2023 artist of the year Grammy award — one of three Grammys garnered so far.

Santa Barbara’s first exposure to Joy was something of an anomaly, albeit a savory seasonal delight. In 2023, she brought out the whole fam-damily to join her in a Christmas program — timed with her EP A Joyful Holiday — stoking the holiday spirit with hipness, while also demonstrating her strong musical family roots. 

At last week’s Granada outing on October 2, the real Samara Joy burst forth with her bounty of gifts, including abiding respect for her jazz singer heroines, chops that won’t quit, and an insistence on keeping the evolution of her craft and voice in forward motion. As vocalists go, Joy is a big-voiced model, capable of loud and intricate highs and ornamental filigree — not to mention that rare ability to scat with intelligence and explorative gumption. But she also diversifies her tonal vocabulary to suit a song or a moment, with varied colors, dynamic range, and spontaneous impulses along the journey. 

She’s a full-service vocal virtuoso, who, for one, appeals to instrumental jazz lovers for her using her voice in an instrumental way. At times, she slips naturally into wordless lock step with the rush and slalom of riffs in a given arrangement.

An important distinction of Joy in this formative stage of her career is that she has created a hot, smart group to evolve with, launched soon after her 2023 Granada visit and showcased on last year’s album Portrait. Her septet, four horns fronting a three-piece rhythm section, functions as a lean and mean little big band, and proves to be an impressive organism as an ensemble navigating often inventive and sophisticated arrangements while showing in soloist mode. 

They are fine players to a man and a woman (trumpeter Alexandra Ridout), validating the theory that jazz currently boasts a sturdy contingency of strong and well-educated young players. Standout solo moments were supplied by tenor saxist Kendric McCallister (in a steamy duet with drummer Evan Sherman), Ridout, and pianist Connor Rohrer.

On this night, Joy also won points for a setlist relatively spare with the stuff of jazz standards, generally favoring more left of expected material. When she did land on a trusty standard, the arrangement and attitude approach personalized the pact, as when they came out swinging — thinkingly — with a version of the oft-heard “Round Midnight,” arranged by McCallister. Here, Joy’s organic improvisational moxie was evident from the first verse, as she did a subtle dance around the melody as written. The band follows an intricate maze of an arrangement on “You Stepped Out of a Dream” — the opening track of Portrait — and recharges the Cuban-flavored arrangement wrappings of “No More Blues.”

Interestingly, an original tune in the mix, trombonist Donavan Austin’s “A Fool in Love (is called a Clown),” a luscious ballad, plays by the old school rules of Great American Songbook song form.

Elsewhere in the set, she paid respects to some on her list of influences, including Betty Carter’s “Beware My Heart.” Joy is helping to shed more light on the too-underrated outlier Carter (who played at the Lobero in the ‘90s). She bowed in the direction of another mentor, Carmen McRae’s “It’s the Little Things that Mean so Much” and delighted with her lesser-known choice for a Billie Holiday tribute, with the Holiday-penned “Left Alone,” never recorded during Lady Day’s too-brief life.

It all added up to a richly musical evening, and a layered one. The concert duly celebrated Joy’s uncommonly and prematurely mature artistry, but it also gave local exposure to the birth of a cool new band, which is tautly integrated into her vision rather than being a casual backup band.

If there was a tune I wish they’d included in the set, it would be Joy’s entrancing arrangement of Charles Mingus’s “Reincarnation of a Love Bird,” a highlight of Portrait and a fine example of her willingness to take on a musical challenge beyond the usual jazz singer canon. Upon Joy’s return to Santa Barbara (yes, please), I won’t be so boorish as to yell out a request, but I’ll think it as hard as I can muster. Joy is welcome back in these parts any old time.