Samara Joy reflects on her Grammy wins and the creative journey behind ‘Portrait’

LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Voice of Samara Joy has the ability to transform listeners into early jazz clubs, filling them with warm nostalgia for legends like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn.

At 25, Joy is a five-time Grammy Award-winning singer whose album “Linger A While” won Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2023. She has been praised by artists such as Chaka Khan, Regina King and Quincy Jones, and has amassed a large following among her Gen Z peers on TikTok, introducing jazz to a new generation.

Last year, Joy released Portrait, her third and most personal studio album, allowing listeners to delve into the tension between excitement and the feeling of overwhelm that often follows the whirlwind of accolades and success. Her first original song, “Peace of Mind,” fully captures this moment.

“I wrote it at a time when I was really wondering if I could continue or not because I was so exhausted,” Joy said. “Through this song Sun Ra, I reminded myself that I've experienced something wonderful and this doesn't have to be the end of everything. This is just the beginning… it's just a springboard for all the other creative ideas I have and what I feel I have to offer.”

For Joy, releasing Portrait was a creative challenge and a turning point in trusting her creative instincts.

“It taught me a lot about what I can do and taught me to stand strong in my creative vision and the direction I see for myself,” she said.

Joy spoke with The Associated Press about life after her Grammy win, how immersing herself in “Portrait” helped her grow as an artist and what it means to make her mark on a classic genre.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Joy: This album was a turning point. Because I feel like for the first time I really had to make a decision about what my path was going to be. For the first two albums, they were just songs that I liked and I felt like I could interpret them as my own. And this album, Portrait, was the first time I felt like I took the reins of the creative direction, the bandmates, and the songs. And to be honest, I opened up even more to my bandmates and said, “Deal.” I want you guys to orchestrate this next era.

So I think it was definitely a big leap from what people thought I should do after the second album after Best New Artist. And I think this album taught me how important it is to be patient and take your time in order to stay relevant or create a spark or just stay in the moment. It taught me to just take your time and really wait until you have something that you think you need to say.

JOY: I never expected to be nominated. I never thought it was possible, at least not this early in my career.

Even thinking about it now, I still see everyone and feel the same way I felt that night. This is a night I will never forget. And I'm grateful. I am very grateful to everyone who believed in me enough to allow me to experience this moment, who voted, who listened to my music, who supported me then and supports me now. That's why I never want to lose sight of why I'm doing this.

JOY: A couple of years ago I performed at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was a celebration of Quincy Jones's birthday – Patty Austin, and I had the opportunity to sing with her. And behind the scenes, you know, she was funny and edgy and quick, but she was just very supportive and very honest. And it meant a lot to me from someone who has been in this industry as long as she has and has worked with Quincy Jones and George Benson and James Ingram and all these people to be so encouraging of me in this new journey as I kind of go on it.”

JOY: I guess I never thought about it that way. There are so many great artists that I draw inspiration from – Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington contributed throughout their lives to the evolution of the music we call jazz. I know that there will always be a certain sense of nostalgia and a certain artist or song that people can easily become attached to or relate to because jazz is not mainstream, at least for me, I don't think that unless it's really, really, really, really watered down, I don't think it will be.

But this is an opportunity for me to once again be sincere and show people, “Have you ever heard of this Abbey Lincoln song?” Or maybe this Thelonious Monk song doesn't have lyrics, but I can add lyrics to them and share a different, you know, different compositional style. And another voice in jazz. And so I think this is my way of bringing that back and educating and just introducing people to a sound that they might not recognize at first, but good music is good music.

Joy: It's a great honor, and sometimes undeserved, because of how new my approach to their music was initially. I didn't listen to their music or their voices at all growing up and meeting them in college, it just felt like a different world had opened up and I felt like I wanted to sing, I wanted to be able to touch people the way they touched me with their voices.