Saturday Conversation: How Samara Joy Found Her Voice On ‘Portrait’

The Grammys for things like Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Rock Song, Country Album and most others are for individual pieces of art the previous year. The one exception is Best New Artist, which is as much a career prediction as an award for the previous year.

So, when rising jazz superstar Samara Joy took home that honor in 2023, the Recording Academy was betting on her future. Joy’s post-Grammy future is arriving with her next album, Portrait, out October 11.

If Portrait is an accurate indicator, the Recording Academy should take the show back to Vegas immediately cause their prognostications would make Nostradamus proud. Not only is Portrait a stunningly enjoyable and musically savvy work, it is also a monumental step forward as an artist for Joy, who co-produced the record, as well as was responsible in some way for arrangements, writing, even the artwork, on the genius work.

Joy spoke with Sage Bava and I about how the late Frankie Beverly was a big part of her family life, how she gained the confidence to help take over the creation of Portrait, why her lyrics are poetic and much more.

Steve Baltin: You were saying how you visit your grandfather in Philly. There is such a rich musical history there. Do you have a favorite Philly song?

Samara Joy: I will say that I surprised my parents with tickets to the Frankie Beverly and Maze, he had his last tour with them and so I surprised them with like a private car driving them to Philly to go and see that concert and everybody was dressed in all white. I would say that’s a big part of my life, Frankie Beverly and Maze.

Sage Bava: Can you talk about the making of this album and how you were a songwriter, you were an arranger, you were a bandleader, you were producer, you were a vocalist, all these different hats that you wore. Was this quite an evolution from the last album in that?

Joy: Absolutely. I’m pretty amazed at myself for having the courage and the confidence to do that because it wasn’t always that way. I think that’s probably the biggest difference that I see in myself, in my performance and in my involvement from the first two albums to now. I feel like the first two albums, I was growing a little bit in confidence. But I feel like I only had confidence in the music area, which is still the same, but it was like, “Okay, this is my repertoire. This is what I want to perform. This is what I love to sing. I know that this will have some sort of connection between me and the audience because I love these songs, and I love to sing them.” But when it came to co-producing, when it came to even listening back to takes to see if I liked them or not, I was like, “I can’t do it. Everything is bad.” I just handed off everything to the “experts” and was like, “Okay, I don’t know if I can manage all of this. Because if it was up to me, maybe I wouldn’t release it.” But now, I’m thinking about it, I’ve been on the road since 2021. So, I’ve had all of this time to accumulate these experiences, and I guess hone in on what I want my sound to be, what I want to present to people. I’ve had the chance to try things out, three or four different bands and different configurations. With this process, I was like, “Okay, there’s so much more clarity. It feels like my eyes have opened and my ears have opened, the more music that I’ve listened to and the more I’ve paid attention to what’s around me.” I want everybody to be in the studio. I want everybody to be in the room in the studio, not in booths. All of our heroes recorded in the room, and it sounded natural and organic. That’s what I want. We’re performing on stage, we’re all close together. I’ve developed this chemistry with everybody. I want it to be the same in the studio. I want to choose who I’m co-producing with. I want to choose the photographers, the stylists, the photo cover, the concept, everything. I want to be a part of every part of the process because I realized that I had all the tools all along, but I just needed time to shape them up a little bit. I think that’s what I’m most proud about, about this whole process and the way that this came about because a year ago, it didn’t sound the way the recording sounds now. We needed a little time to work things out and to rehearse and to play through arrangements, change them up a little bit, try again on the next gig and maybe rehearse and rework it again. That process is something that you can’t shortcut. You have to go through that process of working things out in order to come up with a finished or at least more finished product than what you started with. So, I’m really proud of how this all came together and how I opened myself up to learning more about how to be a part of it.

Bava: The role of a producer is such a nebulous term, and it means different things in different situations. Every person finds their own way in. I’m curious to hear more of your process of finding your way in as a producer and what it was like to work co-producing with Brian Lynch.

Joy: We recorded in March, so all these things are coming back to me now. Producing, I feel like the term, it’s always been defined, at least to me, as somebody who makes sure that the vibe in the room is good. Makes sure that the environment is set, and everything is set in order for the music to flow out freely. I think in this case, it was already an easy way in because we had been on the road, we had been performing. So, it wasn’t like I was meeting all of these musicians for the first time and we had to create a vibe. We had already made one on our own and developed this musical relationship and chemistry on stage. Playing these songs over and over and over again that by the time we got into the studio, we had been pretty relaxed and confident in the material that we were going to play. I think because of that I knew that I wanted to make sure that I was a co-producer and had a hand in how it was going to be recorded, because I knew how I wanted it to sound already. And in Brian Lynch, I found somebody who I had admired because of his musical prowess, the fact that he arranges for large ensembles, he knows exactly what to listen for in horns dynamically, harmonically, feel wise. But it wasn’t like he came in and was like, “I am Brian Lynch.” He respected us as equals. It’s something that to this day, I still really appreciate. He didn’t see us as young kids who were trying stuff out. He respected us as equals and as musicians and treated us as such in rehearsals and in the studio, let us take the lead. If we asked him for opinions or advice or he made a note on certain things, everything was helpful. Everything made sense. Everything was only adding on to what was happening in the studio and only tweaking what had already been kind of like worked on by us, but it was perfect. I was looking for somebody who had fresh ears because I had disadvantages. I have been listening to all the songs and listening to it being created so maybe there are some things that I miss that he could pick up because he’s hearing all this music for the first time. I had never worked with him before but it was it was such a perfect partnership from being in the studio to listening to takes back, trying to figure out which take was better, editing and all that stuff. We had a crunched deadline all of a sudden and he just pulled it together. He and David Darlington pulled together and we got it done and we submitted it. He was a perfect co-producer, co-pilot, partner, whatever you want to call it. He’s an amazing musician and it was really an honor to work with him in this process.

Bava: There are so many steps to talk about with the creation of this, even though you recorded it in such a short period of time. There are so many different elements, and one of them is the lyrics that you wrote. What was that process like to hear this music and then find your story on top of that and come up with the perfect words to say?

Joy: It required a lot of time. I fell in love with the music first because of the story that was already being told by the composer through the melody and through the harmony. I wanted to make sure that the lyrics flowed as easily as the melody did. It’s like when I listen to songs that I wrote lyrics to on this album, like “Reincarnation of a Love Bird” by Charles Mingus and “Now and Then” by Barry Harris and even my own lyrics to my own composition. I didn’t want it so that the lyrics were fighting the melody or that it seemed unnatural. I wanted it to flow as if I wasn’t singing any words, like it was just that easy. And the story was still as clear. It was a process of first learning the melody and feeling comfortable singing it on its own. Then trying to put together a story that went along with the backstory of the original melody. So, with Mingus, it was the fact that he wrote this song for Charlie Parker in honor of him. What I love, the little tidbit that I learned about him writing the song is that he wrote this song in dedication to Bird, but it wasn’t necessarily like he was using, he said something like he wasn’t using necessarily Bird’s musical language. People write compositions dedicated to someone and use everything that they’ve created or whatever. But he wrote this song based on what he felt about Bird, which I thought was really beautiful. And the Barry Harris song, that was more of a personal connection because I knew Barry Harris and I learned from him and I spent time with him like two years. I won’t say it’s a whole lot of time, but enough to realize that I was fortunate enough to be able to do so. So, I wanted to write lyrics honoring him and mentors in general, because they play such an important part in our lives and in our learning. But giving us things to think about, like allowing us to learn from them and watch them at work. It’s something that doesn’t happen as often because a lot of our heroes are past and gone now so we don’t get to see them up close. So, I want to make sure to always mention him and honor him and honor any mentors that I’ve ever had who have inspired me because I wouldn’t be here without their work and without their dedication to the music and their love for it and them sharing it with me. It’s a combination of a lot of things writing lyrics but it takes a lot of time because I want to make sure that it flows easy and it’s easy to understand and easy to sing.

Baltin: Sage and I both write poetry. I was the English major. Who is your favorite poet?

Joy: I will say I enjoy reading works by Toni Morrison. I enjoy reading excerpts of people like James Baldwin and more recently, Isabel Wilkerson. I enjoy their writing. It may not be poetry proper, but I enjoy the way that they write.

Bava: I need to ask about those arrangements and about coming up with those really intricate, but joyful parts.

Joy: Oh, man, I love this question. A year and a half ago, I was listening to and discovering and being introduced to more ensemble recordings, whether it was more Duke Ellington, more Billy Strayhorn, more Benny Golson, more Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. I wanted that behind me. I was like, “I want horns. It wasn’t even like I wanted to sing parts necessarily. I just wanted that sound.” The only way that I felt like we could make it fresh and new was not only by calling on my peers that I knew who loved to arrange and who loved to write, but by giving each of them some of the songs that I liked and allowing them to have free reign. They asked me, “What do you want on this?” I was like, “Just go, just create, just write and see what happens.” I wanted it to be intricate. I wanted it to be a statement of each of their musical personalities because they all come from different backgrounds. One of them listens to Ravel and I think everybody listens to classical music, but a lot of heavy influences in Ravel and, Mussorgsky, I think he said. And then there’s a lot of Latin influence and listening to people like Chucho Valdes and Eddie Palmieri and all these different backgrounds, Barry Harris. I just wanted everybody to pour into the project in every way. I didn’t want it to rely solely on one arranger or solely on one book necessarily. I wanted a wide range of repertoire and a wide cast, a wide net for arrangements. Because I took the step and wanted to expand and wanted to grow, the opportunity was made for me to grow and to do something that I hadn’t done prior and to surround myself with people who were also thinking and passionate about music and who were interested in learning more and not necessarily copying or imitating our heroes word for word and song for song, but using those inspirations to create our own music. As a result we had a show at Town Hall, our debut at Town Hall, and Ron Carter came, Chris Potter came, Kenny Garrett came, Lenny White, and they all loved it. to have people that we look up to who created their own musical landscapes say that they’re proud of what we’re doing and for us to keep going was enough for me.

Bava: That’s amazing. Where does the album’s title come from?

Joy: The reason I named it Portrait is not only because I love visual art and I wanted an oil painting of myself on the cover, but when I look at art, I see the whole picture, and I see the completion of the artist’s idea. But the more that I admire it and the more that I look, I see all of the details and all of the colors and the textures that were required to make this complete picture. Hopefully that’s what people will take away when they listen to this album. At first you might say, this is Gen Z superstar Samara Joy. But the more you listen, you’ll be like, “She’s a musician. She is integral in this music. Throughout every song her identity is becoming more and more clear. Hopefully people get to know me more by listening to this album.