Title: Samara Joy on New Album, 'Portrait' (Listening Party)

[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. On today's show, we'll continue our conversations with local artists who are part of the 2024 New Jersey Arts Annual. It's at the Montclair Art Museum. We'll also talk about this year's Habibi Festival, a celebration of music from Southwest Asia and North Africa, which is about to kick off at Joe's Pub.

We'll speak with two authors, Garth Greenwell, about his latest novel, Small Rain. We'll preview this month's Get Lit with All Of It book club selection with author Janelle Mengistu. That is the plan. Let's get this started with some music from Samara Joy.

[MUSIC - Samara Joy: Small Rain]

You stepped out of a dream

You are too wonderful

To be what you seem

Could there be eyes like yours?

Could there be lips like yours?

Could there be smiles like yours, honest and truly?

You stepped out of a cloud

I want to take you away from the crowd

And have you all to myself

Alone and apart

Out of a dream

Safe in my heart

You stepped out of a cloud

And I want to take you away from the crowd

And have you all to myself

Alone and apart

Out of a dream

Safe in my heart

That's Samara Joy singing You Stepped Out of a Dream, the lead single off her new album dropping this Friday. The album is called Portrait and it's a follow up to Linger a While, which won a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2023. She won the Best New Artist that year at age 23. This hour we are excited to be getting an exclusive listen to tracks from the new album that have not been released. Samara not only sang on this record, she also arranged, produced it, wrote original lyrics.

You can hear Samara's incredible voice and her band in our area in Red Bank on November 7th. Also at her alma mater, SUNY Purchase, on November 9th. Go Panthers. As well as during the holiday season for her annual concert series. Welcome now for a listening party, one of her own, hailing from Castle Hill in the Bronx, now living in Harlem, Samara Joy. Hi, Samara.

Samara Joy: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: Given the album's name, Portrait, what kind of portrait are you presenting to us?

Samara Joy: Hopefully one of growth and exploration, and experimentation. A lot has happened in my life, obviously over the course of the past couple of years.

Alison Stewart: Yes, a little bit.

Samara Joy: A little pressure to go this direction or that direction, but I was staying focused on music, on growing as an artist and a musician, and surrounding myself with people I want to collaborate with, my peers specifically, on this record.

Alison Stewart: When you look at the cover of the album, it's a beautiful oil painting of you. It involves Pinterest and Florida.

[laughter]

Samara Joy: Yes. I'll break it down. I knew that I wanted to involve and incorporate visual art in this album in some way, not only with the single covers, but as just a piece of work, especially when I'm giving out vinyls and CDs and stuff like that, I want it to look like there was some thought and time put into it. I was on Pinterest just scrolling through, just looking up portrait and artist and portrait artist and trying to find not only references that I liked but hopefully somebody that I could collaborate with.

I found this wonderful painter from Florida. He lives in the Sarasota area, and I met up with him on Zoom. I explained what I wanted. I showed him the reference picture from a photo shoot that I did recently, and he got it done in about a week and a half. It's so beautiful. I'm really thankful to him for taking the time to do so.

Alison Stewart: On this album, you have a little bit of a bigger band than you had on Linger a While. It includes a whole brass section. Why did you want to go towards a more expanded sound?

Samara Joy: I felt like that was what I was listening to more and more after Linger a While. I recorded Linger a While in March of 2022, released it in September of 2022, and in between that time and now we're in October of 2024, so much music was introduced to me, so much orchestration and arrangement and things like that, that I was just like, "Wow." At first, it was just a love for it. I love listening to this kind of music and listening to what goes on inside an arranger and composer's head and how it materializes in real-time, but I thought about it.

I was like, "Maybe we could have a big-band sound, but it's coming out of four horns and a rhythm section." The band is made up of trumpet, trombone, alto saxophone and tenor saxophone, and piano trio, and yet the way that they arrange and write, for me, at least, it sounds like a full orchestration, full big band, which is what I love.

Alison Stewart: How did you have to change your vocals or alter your vocals when you're singing with this big of a crowd of a band?

Samara Joy: I feel like I had to open my ears a lot. I'm especially grateful because going from a trio setting where things are pretty loose and it's like, "Oh, we can choose which songs to do tonight," and all that stuff. Not to say there isn't flexibility within this presentation, but because of the arrangements, I had vocal parts written out for me, and that kind of thing. I was listening to the way they were playing dynamically, trying to follow along.

I feel like not only has my ear opened up being in this presentation and in this context, but my range as well. I feel like there's so much more possibility I feel like I have, and it could have only happened by spending time with this and building this musical chemistry with this band.

Alison Stewart: We're talking to Samara Joy. Her new album is called Portrait. It's out on Friday. We're getting an extra special listening party. Let's listen to part of a song from the album that hasn't been released yet. This is A Fool In Love (Is Called A Clown), written by Donovan Austen. Tell us about this song.

Samara Joy: This song was written by my colleague because we both went to SUNY Purchase together. He wrote it our junior year. He wrote the music and the lyrics and did the arrangement. I think that while it is a contemporary song, it still seems and sounds timeless to me because of his influence when writing it.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen. A Fool In Love.

[MUSIC - Samara Joy: A Fool In Love (Is Called A Clown)]

Lonely winters are cold

No one to hold

I had you but that's no more

Makes me start and think did I turn this romance upside down?

You wore the crown through the beat of my heart

I overlooked the part

Where this temporary bond began to fade

Tears soak my bed, dance across my head

A fool who's in love it's called a clown

It's been said that I care a bit too much, that's fair

But who says a mind can dream

Through the night I ache

I flame keeps my mind from getting rest.

Alison Stewart: That's Samara Joy. It's so great. The brush on the drum just takes you right back. When you're singing the lyrics, it's also interesting talking to you, you have very good annunciation. [laughs] You're seeing the lyrics, you're thinking about the lyrics. How do you dive into the meaning of the lyrics when you're performing?

Samara Joy: I would say because I have the opportunity to perform and perform live and go on tour and try things out, I figure, "Let me internalize the melody, let me figure out what the song is about and what the lyrics are trying to say, what perspective I'm saying it from," and the rest is just I leave it up to my imagination. Maybe I want to sing it more powerful one night. One night, I want to be intense, but still a little bit subtle, but I would say internalizing the melody and the lyrics first and then the rest follows.

Alison Stewart: What was a risk that you took on this album?

Samara Joy: I think the biggest risk overall was trusting myself to creative direct, so to speak because I think in past recording experiences, I only have two albums outside of this one coming up, and those were my only recording studio experiences. I really was like, "Okay, this is the repertoire I'm comfortable with. I'll let the decisions be made about what to use this for, what the single is, and all this stuff," just because I wasn't-- even down to not being sure how to properly express myself on certain songs because I had ideas in my head, but I wasn't sure how confident I was executing them in the studio and having it live forever and ever.

With this one, I really wanted to take the risk and trust myself not only to present this project, as scary as it was for some people to be like, "Oh, my gosh, this is totally different from Linger a While." Different orchestration, different band, all this stuff. I wanted to take the risk and be like, "People will appreciate it." I feel like nothing becomes a hit when you play it once. We have to introduce and put things into the fold and allow people to get acclimated to the sound of this new project and of new things in general in order for it to then become something maybe standard or something that's just commonplace.

Having the courage to say, "This is the band I want to work with. These are the team of all-stars, in my opinion, the right people for the job, the right chemistry. The people that I know are going to put ego aside and put their all into this band, into cultivating a sound for this band that is unique." Choosing the producer, choosing co-producers, choosing the studio, choosing album cover, choosing videographer for the studio. I wanted my hand in everything. Choosing the lead single, choosing the follow-up single, when it would even be released, all of that stuff. I feel like the biggest risk was on myself and being confident enough to really step up.

Alison Stewart: When you said confidence, that's what I kept thinking, Samara. I hear a confident young woman who goes into her projects with an idea.

Samara Joy: Absolutely. For me, I'm sorry I keep saying it, but it starts from performing live. I feel like it's a great opportunity, at least for me to try out new things and see what I like and don't like about my presentation so by the time I go into the studio, there's really no surprises. This band, it just grew out of my love for listening to Duke Ellington, listening to Thad Jones, listening to Benny Golson, and wanting to have that sound just inspired by their artistry and their individual voices with what they wrote.

I was like, "I want to start a band. Okay. Band started. Okay. We're going to go on the road. We got gigs, we got opportunities. Here are the songs I want you all to arrange. No boundaries. I want it to be limitless. I want us to put all of the paint on the wall and then start to sculpt." Two different art references.

Alison Stewart: We got you.

Samara Joy: I just wanted to put it all out there and then refine it as we go along. I'm really glad that I had the time to develop the confidence to do so because now it's like, "Okay, this is a year and a half or so we're in the making, so I have the utmost confidence that this is the project that really is going to at least show where I am right now."

Alison Stewart: My guest is Samara Joy. The new album is called Portrait. We're having a listening party. Let's listen to some more music. The song Peace of Mind is a song that you compose with your tenor sax, Kendrick McAllister. It also combines Dreams Come True by Sun Ra. Before we listened to it, where did you get the idea to write Peace of Mind?

Samara Joy: It developed pretty slowly. At first, I just had the melody. I was sitting at the piano one day, and I was tinkering around, and I was like, "I like this. I like this motif. I'm going to try to develop it more and see what comes of it." Started writing lyrics, and I realized that I wanted it to be my first original song and contribution to this project in particular. Usually when I'm on stage, I don't talk about the overwhelming side of all that's happened in my life, because I wasn't expecting any of this.

It wasn't like, "Okay, I have a plan. I'm going to go to jazz school. I'm going to graduate, and I'm going to become a star. All of these all of these are going to--"

Alison Stewart: "I'll be walking up at the Grammys at 23."

Samara Joy: "I'll be walking up--" Nothing of this was in the cards. It was a pretty overwhelming transition. I wasn't sure at one point how to handle and adapt to it all, adapt to this new lifestyle of being away from my parents and really being on my own. I had people around me. I have a team, have the band members and stuff, but really, it was a weird isolation because it's not like I'm going out on tour with somebody else as a background singer or I'm shadowing somebody. It was me from the beginning.

Alison Stewart: You got launched out of a cannon.

Samara Joy: Yes. It was a very overwhelming transition. This song is the first time I've ever actually detailed what it feels like to have to make all of these decisions and choose which path to go down, especially when there are other people projecting what they want for you to do or what they see for you doing, and you have to defend yourself and be like, "Do they know more because they're experienced, or do I know more about myself than anybody and what I want to represent, how I want to sing, and what I want to sing?" The song is posed as a question.

Where do you find your peace of mind? Is it in the places you go or the people you meet? Ala A Song for You, Donny Hathaway. I pose it as a question, and it's suspenseful. There's no defined time. It's all conducted. Then it's followed up with the answer. Dreams Come True, a medley, a wonderful Sun Ra song, just as a reminder to myself, even though I have questions about what the future holds, I just have to take it one step at a time because so much good has happened. Peace of Mind and Dreams Come True.

Alison Stewart: We'll start about a minute 30 in. This is Peace of Mind.

[MUSIC - Samara Joy: Peace of Mind]

Sometimes you feel like giving up, but don't ever lose hope

Sometimes you feel like giving up, but don't ever lose hope

Just remember, sometimes you feel like giving up

Never lose hope

Dreams come true I know they do

If you believe in love mine came true

And yours will, too I swear by the scars above

Dreams come true. They just have to

True as the sun above

Mine came true and yours will, too if you believe in love

Alison Stewart: You hear that beautiful Sun Ra song come in at the end? How did those two songs-- your original song and the Sun Ra song, how did they match up? Was that in the plan or did it just happen?

Samara Joy: It just happened. I'll say that because I wrote the song first, and I remember getting to the part where it's like, "Sometimes you feel like giving up, but don't ever lose hope," and where I ended the original song was just remember. I was like, "Just remember what? What am I just remembering amidst all of this new lifestyle that I'm getting accustomed to and acclimated to and stuff."

I was actually introduced once again to that song by Donovan Austin, the trombonist who wrote A Fool In Love (Is Called A Clown). I was introduced to that when we were sophomores or juniors. I remember getting reintroduced to it and being like, "Oh, this is the answer." The original song was arranged by the drummer in the band, my drummer, Evan Sherman. The second song was arranged by the alto saxophonist David Mason.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Samara Joy. We'll have more with Samara after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Allison Stewart. My guest is Samara Joy. Her new album is called Portrait. Fans have seen you live. Know your little bossa nova might make it into the set. You might speak a little Portuguese. Our producer Luke said he's heard you do that twice.

Samara Joy: I have. Oh, gosh. I'm from the Bronx, so you know it has a little boogie down something on it.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: You've got a song called No More Blues. It's translated from the original. When did you hear this song?

Samara Joy: I first heard the song another shout out to SUNY Purchase during our Latin and Afro-Cuban repertoire class. Originally, it was called Chega de Saudade, and I figured I would do the English version of it with lyrics actually written by John Hendricks. He entitled it No More Blues. It's super fun. I love the harmonic structure. I love the way that it was arranged. Our trumpeter Jason Charos arranged this one, and it's just a fun one to sing live. Usually, I do the Portuguese live. Maybe I'll record it as a deluxe or something like that

Alison Stewart: Let's hear No More Blues.

[MUSIC - Samara Joy: No More Blues]

No More Blues I'm going back home

No more dos, I promise no more to Rome

Home is where the heart is, the funny part is

My heart's been right there all along

No more tears and no more signs

No more fears I've said my last goodbye

I've traveled back home to me

I swear I'm going to refuse I'm going to settle down

And there'll be no more blues

Every day when I am far away

my thoughts turn homeward forever homeward

I have traveled round the world in search of happiness

But all the happiness I found was in my hometown

No more blues, I'm going back home

No more blues, I'm through with all my wandering

Now I'll settle down and never roam

And find a man and build a home

When we settle down

There'll be no more blues

Nothing but happiness when we settle down

There'll be no more blues

Nothing but happiness when we settle down

There'll be no more blues.

Alison Stewart: That's Samara Joy singing No More Blues. How many dates a year do you say you tour?

Samara Joy: Oh, gosh. This year is a little bit lighter, but I would say close to probably 150 to 200 dates.

Alison Stewart: That's got to be exhausting for you.

Samara Joy: So crazy.

Alison Stewart: How do you take care of your voice?

Samara Joy: I am definitely increasing my water intake more than I did while I was in college, for sure. I'm still working on my practice regimen. Take it day by day as far as travel and stuff like that, but warming up, practicing, resting, vocalizing throughout the day, that's usually how I keep it maintained.

Alison Stewart: The other issue I want to talk about is fashion. May we please? We have to shout out your stylist-

Samara Joy: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: -Kelly Augustine.

Samara Joy: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: How important is fashion, how you look when you're on stage? It does seem to be a thing.

Samara Joy: It's becoming more and more of-- I don't want to say it's a shock to me, but I'm more aware of it now than I feel like I was. Just looking at other artists and celebrities, how they dress and how important that is for their brand and for making sure they're put together. I've worked with this wonderful stylist named Carlton Jones for a while. My first Today Show look, I remember doing my first fitting with him, and it was just like, "Oh, my gosh, this really is important."

Recently with Kelly Augustine, last night, we played the green space downstairs, and I wore this gown and I was like, "Should I wear a gown? I don't know. Is that appropriate?" It ended up being so fitting for the evening. It's really been important choosing the right clothes for each context and not just being like, "I'll just dig in my closet and try to find something." No, having looks planned out in advance saves a lot of hassle.

Alison Stewart: Does it put you in the right mindset to be dressed a certain way?

Samara Joy: If the dress doesn't do it, the heels certainly do. They remind you, "You're at work, you are here to do your job." I would say yes, it makes me feel good when I'm all dressed up and ready to be the face of what I'm trying to present here.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear another song. This is Reincarnation of a Lovebird. It's a Charles Mingus composition. Tell us a little bit about what you wanted to do with this song.

Samara Joy: This song is obviously a beautiful instrumental. This song is a composition by Mingus that he wrote for his friend and collaborator, the late, Great Charlie Parker. I thought that the story behind it alone was amazing, but the melody and the harmonic structure is unlike any standard song I have ever heard. Classically-influenced, jazz-influenced. It was pretty hard to try to put lyrics to this, but it was a beautiful challenge that took well over a year before I was finally comfortable to do it live.

This is, I feel like, one of the steps that I've taken, I feel like, since the past couple of albums where not only am I delving into deeper material, but it's allowing me to open as far as being a lyricist and taking the responsibility of making sure that the lyrics don't compete with the melody at all. They blend and mesh with it perfectly.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear Reincarnation of a Lovebird by Samara Joy.

[MUSIC - Samara Joy: Reincarnation of a Lovebird]

I'd rather love you while you're in my dreams

Maybe then you'll learn to love me

If only it were that easy

Only a dream to me you were

And then you slowly slipped away

An angel of the night and of the day

Our time has come but will you ever return

To love's arms

No eyes ever seen

No ears ever heard

No mind's ever thought

No heart’s ever sung

Love’s still a never ending melody

But sure as the sun

And dark as the moon

And swift as the breeze

Together soon

We'll be

Alison Stewart: That is Samara Joy from her new album, Portrait. You're returning to SUNY Purchase for a concert on November 9th. It's where you graduated from. Why is it important for you to go back to your roots?

Samara Joy: I would say if I hadn't gone to SUNY Purchase, I wouldn't be doing this right now. I was introduced to jazz towards the end of high school, but I feel like I wasn't really interested or immersed in it until I got to SUNY Purchase. The professors there, Pete Malinverni, Jon Faddis, Kenny Washington, Gary Smulyan, Ralph Lalama, all of these people who have a significant place in the jazz community, but they're available, and they're available resources at the school. I learned so much.

I got there just hoping to be the best student I could be, and I ended up falling in love with this music. I have them to thank and my peers, honestly, who I met in school and now still collaborate with to this day for being an inspiration to me, for showing me so much new music. I'm born and raised in New York City, and I hadn't been to a jazz club until I got to college. It was like this whole underground world of music that I had never listened to before.

I'm grateful that they saw the potential and saw that I was willing to work and to listen and to learn. Now I get the chance to thank them and go back.

Alison Stewart: The new album is called Portrait. It'll be out this Friday. We've been getting an exclusive listen to some new music from Samara Joy. Samara, thank you so much for being with us.

Samara Joy: Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: Let's go out on Autumn Nocturne.

[MUSIC - Samara Joy: Autumn Nocturne]

When autumn sings a lullaby

And green leaves turn to gold

Then I remember in September you and I

Said goodbye

Whispering that we would be returning when

Autumn came again

Now autumn roams the hills once more

But you forgot