Samara Joy - Linger Awhile (Deluxe Edition) (2023) Hi-Res

Released last year on Whirlwind, Samara Joy McLendon's debut album announced the arrival of a remarkable new talent, a vocalist who possessed timing, timbral richness and emotional power in abundance.

On this follow-up album, released on the iconic Verve label, the winner of the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition pays homage to one of her most important touchstones on opener ‘Can’t Get Out Of This Mood’, which Vaughan recorded in 1950 with George Treadwell and his All Stars. Containing echoes of the version recorded by the great Carmen McRae on her 1957 album After Glow, ‘Guess Who I Saw Today’ is a standout. In addition to dusting down ‘Social Call’, written by Gigi Gryce with lyrics by vocalese legend Jon Hendricks, the singer presents two stunning additions to the genre in the shape of Fats Navarro's ‘Nostalgia (The Day I Knew)’ plus ‘I'm Confessin’ (That I Love You)’, the latter based on Lester Young's solo from the album Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio recorded in NYC exactly 70 years earlier in 1952. With outstanding support from guitarist Pasquale Grasso, pianist Ben Paterson, bassist David Wong and drummer Kenny Washington, the title track – first recorded almost 100 years ago in 1923 by Bailey's Lucky Seven – blazes like an exploding star. Augmented by horns (trumpeter Terell Stafford, trombonist Donavan Austin, tenorist Kendrick McCallister), there's a wondrous take on Monk's ‘Round Midnight’ (in the version with lyrics by Hendricks) while, accompanied solely by Grasso, the singer's incredibly beautiful timbre is heard to best effect in the Gershwins’ ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’, which brings this staggeringly fine album to a close.

'A young vocalist with a low alto as rich as custard... and a devotion, at least for now, to a classic cool-jazz sound' - The New York Times. Samara Joy makes her Verve debut, with a voice, tone and phrasing that harkens back to the most iconic jazz vocalists of all time. At just 22 years old, Samara already belongs in the company of iconic label mates from Ella Fitzgerald to Sarah Vaughan to Billie Holiday, and is poised to become synonymous with timeless jazz music. Her stunningly timeless voice belies her youth and her approach to jazz feels reverent but also truly fresh and exciting.