It’s important you don’t try and listen to the radio right after seeing Samara Joy perform for 90 minutes straight. It’s doubly important you don’t then try to fix that egregious error by listening to an album—any album—immediately after that. So few artists and songs compare to the greatness she offers in a live setting, the one that deserved a longer standing ovation at its end, and several more shuffled in throughout the other numbers she offered.
An easy truth: it’s hard to put into words what was seen and heard, but using, oh, “glorious” and “genius” and “flabbergasted” seem like a few right ones. As I walked out of a largely filled Kingsbury Hall, trailing two gentlemen with far more gray in their hair than I, one said to the other, “She’s just so … sophisticated!” And that’s not a word I’d have used, but it’s not wrong, either. Vocabulary easily fails when we’re trying to describe a surprise showing of talent. Still, we stumble around all the same. We make our attempts as we must.
Joy was an easy presence to pay attention to and marvel at, start to finish, along with her incredible band of players. All had long chances to share exactly why they belong in her band, whether it was because they’d arranged a standard they’d all performed, played long unaccompanied solos, or participated in songs they put their stamp on by playing as fast as they possibly could. It was decidedly playful and sometimes hilarious. It was bafflingly beautiful and evocative. It’s as if Joy and her band decided to move the marker forward for what jazz can be. As a fan, it’s easy to claim most live jazz is good, but only some of it stands up as great.
Maybe these aren’t the right words to say and share about all that was seen. Maybe it is easier to give it a one-word review and call it sophisticated. Maybe. Entering Kingsbury’s doors that night, it felt right away like it would be deeply special, and that premonition proved 100 percent correct. It’s felt that way for months leading up to her concert.
Little did we know, however, that we would witness what very well may have been one of the best jazz vocalists in the industry today. Samara Joy — along with her band, her septet — is what excellence looks and sounds like.
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