SAMARA JOY

With a style that harkens back to the ‘50s and ’60s eras of jazz music, the twenty-six year old Samara Joy McLendon is an emerging singer from the Bronx, New York. Her childhood was filled with soul and Motown classics, but gospel music was the most dominant due to many of her elder relatives having been involved with the genre.

Though she performed in the jazz band and won Best Vocalist at the Essentially Ellington Competition & Festival while in high school, her true introduction to jazz came when she enrolled at Purchase College as a voice major in their jazz program. During her studies, a video she made with the head of Purchase’s jazz program performing Ella Fitzgerald’s “Take Love Easy” went viral, and that exciting experience was enough for Samara to create a GoFundMe campaign to cover the expenses in putting together her debut album.

The end result, Samara Joy, was released two months after her college graduation in 2021. Her second album Linger Awhile arrived on September 16, 2022, and has allowed Samara to receive her first of many Grammy Awards thus far: one for Best New Artist and another for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

Tickets: $179.00 ~ $651.00