Samara Joy at Christ Church Cranbrook

Samara Joy
Christ Church Cranbrook
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
March 24, 2023

Jazz fans in the Detroit metro area have become well-acquainted with the stately confines of Christ Church Cranbrook, as the church has hosted a series of sacred concerts and jazz masses going back to 2015. These include regular appearances by Rodney Whitaker, the church's Artist in Residence, and a bevy of other musicians including Terence Blanchard, Cyrus Chestnut and Vanessa Rubin. The launching of the Cranbrook Project in 2019 has intensified the community's efforts to bring more jazz into its sanctuary. But there was some additional excitement in the air the evening of Friday, March 24, as vocal phenom Samara Joy was in the house. Over six hundred enthusiastic listeners packed the church to behold a singer who seems destined to help carry the torch of jazz vocals for years to come.

Detroit's own quartet Musique Noire opened the evening, the group presenting its distinctive flavor of what it calls "world jazz" with a compact set of five engaging pieces, built on a foundation of strong grooves and skilled musicianship. With strings at the forefront of the group's sound, courtesy of violinist Michelle May, violist Leslie Deshazor Adams and violist/violinist Leah Lucas Celebi, and complemented by the wide-ranging percussion of JoVia Armstrong, their concept draws equally from jazz, blues, and various world music idioms. On Friday the group was expanded to a sextet, with bassist Marion Hayden and guitarist Elden Kelly enhancing the rhythmic energy of the band. The performance included three pieces from the group's 2022 release, In*ter*gen*er*a*tion*al, including a spirited up-tempo version of "Motherless Child" that ended the set with fervor.

The transition from Musique Noire to Samara Joy felt a bit jarring, even given the 15-minute intermission, because Joy's sound is so thoroughly anchored in traditional jazz. Indeed, one of the most surprising things about her meteoric rise over the past year, including her two 2023 Grammy awards (one of which was for Best New Artist), is just how uncompromising she has been in sticking to conventional jazz repertoire. Neither her self-titled debut (Whirlwind, 2021) nor her follow-up, Linger Awhile (Verve, 2022) display any desire to produce crowd-pleasing crossover pop efforts to reach a wider demographic. Yet she has started to reach across the generational divide. While the older-skewing audience at the Christ Church performance would suggest that she still has some work ahead of her in winning over more Gen Z fans, there is no question that her vibrant social media presence and natural self-effacing manner have helped endear her to a younger generation of music listeners. And then there is the power of her voice, which is simply undeniable. One doesn't have to be a jazz fan to recognize when one is in the presence of a generational talent, and that was amply in evidence during Joy's astonishing 90-minute set.

From the moment she took the stage, Joy captivated the audience with her command over her instrument. The opener, "This is the Moment," provided the first of many bravura flourishes, as Joy began the piece with some playful musings over drummer Evan Sherman's brushes, before suddenly launching into the upper register at the end of the first chorus, bringing the rest of the band into the piece dramatically. One of the most notable things about seeing Joy live is that it becomes evident just how big, and bold, her sound can be—something that her recordings cannot quite fully capture. Take "Can't Get Out of This Mood," for instance, the opening track on Linger Awhile, which alone has garnered Joy her share of justified comparisons to Sarah Vaughan. While the album version reveals Joy's adept way with a lyric and her remarkable phrasing and tone control, hearing her perform it live is another matter altogether: those impassioned high notes shine with extra radiance, and the hair-raising dynamic range of her voice becomes even more stunning.

Listening to Joy work her way through a ballad is just as impressive. Her rendition of "'Round Midnight" was a tour de force, with an authority in conveying the piece's poignancy that was quite striking, and "Guess Who I Saw Today" was just as memorable, perhaps even more so when the piece moved seamlessly into Stevie Wonder's "Lately," the one instance in which Joy ventured beyond the narrower parameters of the jazz tradition—and the crowd ate it up. Clearly there are layers to Joy's talent yet to be explored, and part of the thrill of watching her perform is the recognition that she has only begun to tap into the talent she has in such abundance.

In addition to the aforementioned Sherman, Joy's current band includes pianist Conor Rohrer and bassist Paul Sikivie, and they proved more than capable co-interpreters of Joy's well-chosen setlist, particularly when it came to following the wide emotional arc of her renditions. Rohrer's two-handed facility and penchant for block chords helped energize the up-tempo pieces, and Sikivie's nimble maneuverings were pivotal throughout, especially during his fleet solo on Djavan's "Flor de Lis," a Portuguese piece sung by Joy in convincing bossa nova fashion.

There was a moment halfway through the band's blazing version of "Linger Awhile" that perfectly encapsulates this stage of Joy's career. After another jaw-dropping upper-register chorus, she stepped back a bit, seemingly almost sheepish at the sheer force of her delivery, with a somewhat curious expression as if to say, "Did I just do that?" Perhaps the time may come in which Joy's vocal acrobatics will come to seem routine, less astounding either to the vocalist or to her audience. But until then, the wonder in watching a star born in real time has its unique charms, and it gave the singer's Christ Church Cranbrook performance its special magic.

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