23-YEAR-OLD SAMARA JOY IS THE RECIPIENT OF THE 2023 GRAMMY AWARDS FOR BEST NEW ARTIST AND BEST JAZZ VOCAL ALBUM. HER 2022 SOPHOMORE OUTING, LINGER AWHILE (VERVE), IS A JUBILANT CELEBRATION OF THE AMERICAN SONGBOOK. HER WARM, VELVET-DARK VOCAL TONE, GRACEFUL SWING SENSE, AND INTUITIVE INTERPRETATIONS PROVIDE A MASTER CLASS IN CLASSIC JAZZ FUNDAMENTALS.
Joy owns the past but also the present. On her TikTok channel, "Samarajoysings," she has accumulated 585,100 Followers and 4.3 million Likes. The channel documents performances of such standards as "A Foggy Day," "Guess Who I Saw Today," an a capella "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and a sublime "Round Midnight," delivered in multi-octave glory. Old and new, together.
Read that last bit again, about TikTok. That Joy is popular with jazz fans will surprise no one who has heard her music. That she has won such a following on a platform dominated by 10-19-year-olds mainly by singing 70-year-old songs-boggles the mind.
Even as many jazz writers, labels, and magazines seem to have thrown in the towel on attracting the jazz-unwashed masses to jazz, Joy has captured the hearts and minds of their children with a style inspired by Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter, Carmen McRae, and, to a lesser degree, Billie Holiday. We wonder what it takes to reach younger audiences; maybe what it takes is the right artist.
One listen to Linger Awhile makes it clear that Joy is a generational talent, most closely resembling a young Ella Fitzgerald. Music courses through her 5'4" frame like a force of nature; she contains and guides it, yielding bliss, exhilaration, and-yes-joy.
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Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av Stereophile.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Louis in London
No jazz-centric visit to New York City is complete without a trek out to Queens. At 46th Street in Sunnyside stands the apartment building where famed cornetist Leon Bismark \"Bix\" Beiderbecke's alcoholism finally killed him in 1931.
Believing in bricks and mortar
North Carolina hi-fi dealer Audio Advice has been busy lately.
Musical Fidelity AI
In 1989, I bought my second pair of Rogers LS3/5a's from a guy on Staten Island who had them hooked up to a Musical Fidelity AI integrated amplifier.
Burmester 218
As much as I tinkered with a little crystal radio as a child and started reading stereo magazines in high school, it wasn't until my early 30s that I half-stumbled into the higher end of the hi-fi sphere.
Bowers & Wilkins 805 D4 Signature
The \"Bowers\" in the name of British manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) refers to founder John Bowers, whom I got to know fairly well before he passed in 1987.
Hegel H400
STREAMING INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacle
How many times have you been told by parents and teachers that everything successful must be built on a strong foundation?
RECOMMENDED RC2024 COMPONENTS
Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable.
Paging Dr. Löfgren
It started one evening when I was killing time watching YouTube videos and stumbled across a 2017 talk given by Jonathan Carr, Lyra's brilliant cartridge designer.'
Music among the Fairchildren
Pull down the shades, find a comfortable seat, and come with me on an imaginary journey to the year 1956. The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket wins reelection, the United Methodist Church begins to ordain women, and a can of Campbell's tomato soup costs 10 cents.
