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Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Grammy-winning jazz singer Samara Joy returns to Detroit for Wednesday riverfront concert
The most celebrated jazz singer of the last five years is returning to Detroit on Wednesday for an evening of music on the Detroit River. At just 25 years old, Samara Joy has captured the hearts — and the ears — of the music industry, with five Grammys already to her name after her 2021 self-titled debut and 2022's 'Linger Awhile' established her as the darling of the jazz world. She'll perform Wednesday, June 4, at downtown Detroit's Aretha Franklin Amphitheater. During the concert, Joy will perform songs from her third full-length album, 2024's 'Portrait.' The classy, inspired set finds the singer tackling standards such as "Day by Day," "No More Blues (Chega de Saudade)" and "You Stepped Out of a Dream," while also reaching new breakthroughs in her artistry, writing lyrics to existing melodies by legendary composers and stretching her voice in unexpected ways. It takes a highly ambitious artist to not only compose lyrics for a complicated and demanding tune like Charles Mingus' 'Reincarnation of a Lovebird' — to then attempt to sing it is a whole other mountain to climb. Joy pulls it off dynamically with a stylish, virtuoso performance that announces she's no flash in the pan, and she's only going to become greater with time. 'With 'Reincarnation,' I only wrote the words,' she said, 'and I enjoy doing that because I feel like it allows me to listen with intent and find words and a story that melds with the story already being told by the melody. It took me about a year to get the words right, and even more time to sing it right, but it also gave me an opportunity to expand my repertoire in a different way, and sing melodies that weren't necessarily written for the vocalist — to challenge myself.' One of Joy's early teachers was not just a Detroiter, but the legendary composer/pianist/educator Barry Harris, who died in 2021 at age 91. On 'Portrait,' she also penned lyrics to a melody of his, 'Now and Then (In Remembrance Of).' 'The song was composed by him,' she said, 'and I only really stopped to listen to it after he passed. I realized not only what a beautiful song it was, but it just kind of felt like listening to him in a song. It felt like I could really see his face whenever I listened, and hear him speaking, so I wanted to write lyrics dedicated to him and the inspiration that he gave me, but also dedicated to all the mentors in our lives. When we cross paths with them, our whole perspective changes, and that's what he did for a lot of people.' Joy, a Bronx native, also confided she's beginning to think about material for her next project. 'As I'm listening to music, I take note of what I like and what I'm gravitating toward naturally,' she said, 'and right now, that's (seminal jazz composer and arranger) Billy Strayhorn. I read his biography written by David Hajdu about a year ago, and I just loved it. I was listening to his music in a new way after reading that, so maybe I would like to delve into his repertoire.' Though Joy has played Detroit many times over the last several years, this will be her first time on the waterfront Aretha stage. 'I'm happy to come back,' she told the Free Press. 'I'm so excited, and the energy Detroit gives is always No. 1.' Samara Joy will perform, along with the Urban Art Orchestra, at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 4, at Detroit's Aretha Franklin Amphitheater, 2600 E. Atwater. Tickets start at $26.75 and can be purchased at Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@ This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Grammy-winning jazz singer Samara Joy returns to Detroit Wednesday
Wall Street Journal
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
Where Jazz Singer Samara Joy Keeps Her Five Grammys
Samara Joy, 25, is a jazz singer and the winner of five Grammy Awards. Her most recent album, 'Portrait,' was released last year, and she currently is on a global tour through the fall. She spoke with Marc Myers. I grew up in the past. I think this is true of many people who are close with their parents and enjoy their taste in music. You can't help it.
Spectator
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Why can't the BBC Proms stick to classical music?
Welcome to this year's BBC Proms, the self-styled 'World's Greatest Classical Music Festival', whose programme was revealed today. Every year I write about how even The Proms, which bills itself unambiguously as a festival of classical music, can't bring itself to be just that: a festival of classical music. And every year it gets worse, with the idea of 'inclusion' so pervasive that music which has as much to do with a classical music festival as my pet cat would have at Crufts taking over ever more evenings. This year's schedule is the final straw. On day two, the Proms presents 'The Great American Songbook and Beyond' with Samara Joy, which is followed by 'Round Midnight' with 'hip hop artist Soweto Kinch'. That's followed a few nights later by Angeline Morrison singing folk songs from her album 'The Sorrow Songs', and then Arooj Aftab and Ibrahim Maalouf with their 'captivating, eclectic melting-pot of influences from jazz, folk, pop, blues and South Asian' and 'Middle Eastern melodies…jazz, Latin jazz, and African rhythms' respectively. There's an evening of Soul Revolution, which will 'trace a path from spirituals through gospel to soul, revealing the role of these genres in supporting the Civil Rights movement.
