Pic Samara Joy… Photo credit Shane Rozario
The 25-year-old American singer Samara Joy, nominally the headline artist of theSydney International Women’s Jazz Festival (SIWJF) performed under somewhat difficult circumstances: she had come down with a respiratory infection in advance of this concert. Given an exceedingly warm reception from the audience as soon as she emerged onstage at City Recital Hall, she immediately apologised for her condition, saying that she had travelled a long way to get to Australia, and she would do her best to “give what I got”, or words to that effect. It had been heard that the four front-line players in her American septet (trombone, trumpet, alto sax & tenor sax) were also sick, while the rhythm section players (piano, bass & drums) were well.
Joy said she would keep talking to a minimum during her set, scheduled for an hour-and-a-half, and no doubt she restricted herself to numbers which were relatively easy to sing, and therefore did not strain her voice. Also there were probably more instrumental solos than usual from the musicians in her band, in order to rest her voice as much as possible. However, over the next 90 minutes she was still able to produce a stunning exhibition of extraordinary vocal artistry.
More on Samara Joy below, but first some comments on the opening artists, Kristin Berardi (vocals) and Sam Anning (double bass) who followed the Freyja Garbett Quartet the previous evening in opening a major SIWJF concert with a great performance. It’s so gratifying to see how well our local artists are measuring up to the distinguished internationals who are greeted with such enthusiasm.
Berardi and Anning did only half-an-hour, but it was a gem of a performance. They opened with the lovely Carla Bley song Lawns, which immediately showed Berardi’s qualities: a voice of superior quality and a completely individual approach to the articulation of lyrics, including an armoury of wordless vocal ideas. After introductory pleasantries, their second number was Berardi’s composition He was a Loaded Gun, a key track on her extraordinary 2022 album The Light & The Dark, a remarkably brave and personally revealing album. I wonder how many jazz enthusiasts are familiar with this incredible album, recorded in New York.
Berardi and Anning continued with a searching version of the Hoagy Carmichael evergreen Stardust, and Anning’s great composition Bamboo Shoots, before moving on to another of Berardi’s impressive compositions, this time More Than We Need.
A word on Anning, one of a handful of great double bassists in this country. Here, amongst his enthusiastic playing, he tastefully applied the maxim “less is more” to accompany, complement and add to the pure magic of this performance. Anning is an outstanding musician who demonstrated the importance of understatement and, for that matter, of silence.
These two great musicians received the warmest possible reception from a capacity audience at CRH, confirming that the best of our local jazz artists are capable of performances of which we can be justly proud.
Now back to the star of the show. In a nutshell Samara Joy’s natural abilities were formidable: a rich and gorgeous voice, highly reminiscent of The Divine One, particularly when she dropped down into her lower registers and, even if she was singing under duress, one would be hard pressed to identify any failings in her vocal strengths, which are apparent on YouTube videos.
She opened with the standard Beware My Heart, probably best-known for the Betty Carter version of 1964. Immediately one was impressed with the easy way in which Joy incorporated scat singing into her presentation throughout the song. Indeed she did here what she was to do at the end of other songs – take the song out with a wordless vocal cadenza, done so well and with such musical taste that applause erupted when she finished the tune, usually on a quiet note.
Significantly, it was notable throughout, that she generally avoided the big ending, which some singers often employ to encourage applause; Joy, on the contrary, invariably chose to end her tunes with quiet subtlety (and still engender rapturous applause).
Her second number was the standard Three Little Words, in fairly bright four, at a slightly faster clip than Nat King Cole’s famous 1964 version. Once again she included a strong wordless vocal, a feature of her artistry that was obviously one of her strongest suits. She then proceeded with a lovely slow ballad A Fool in Love (Is Called a Clown), written by the trombonist in her band Donavan Austin.
By this time it was clear that Joy, even though her style was completely contemporary – it was in no sense old-fashioned – she was the sort of jazz artist who naturally reminded us of the great days of singers such as Ella, Carmen McRae, Betty Carter, Abbey Lincoln and of course the inimitable Sassy.
I missed the name of the following tune, owing to faulty notetaking. Her next tune however was Left Alone, with music by Mal Waldron and lyrics by Billie Holiday. Apparently Holiday intended to record this number but, according to Waldron, usually forgot to bring the sheet music to her recording sessions. Holiday died prematurely in 1959 aged 44 without ever recording the tune. A poignant and very unusual song with great lyrics, it was recorded in 1961 by Abbey Lincoln. Here it was sung beautifully by Joy, and should be better known.
Next was It’s The Little Things That Mean So Much, the lovely tune written by Teddy Wilson and recorded by Carmen McRae in 1957. Joy ended with the standard The End of a Beautiful Friendship, another tune one associates indelibly with Nat King Cole.
By the time this performance was coming to a close, it was clear that Samara Joy had the audience eating out of her hand. Apparently the previous night in Penrith she was able to do only 45 minutes, but here in CRH she managed the full 90 minutes set. Before ending, however, she asked us to respond by repeating simple scat phrases. While this may have been a gimmick in the hands of a lesser artist, it seemed perfectly normal given the authority she had established onstage. The members of the audience, I must say, did very well to duplicate her scat figures which got more complex the more she went on. I felt this was a warm-hearted gesture on the part of a jazz artist luxuriating in the arms of an audience totally wrapt in her performance.
It’s true to say that Samara Joy had completely won over the City Recital Hall audience, such was her humility and her obvious great talent. Following the Hiromi tour de force the previous evening, Samara Joy’s performance was similarly sensational, but in a different way, adding real lustre to the SIWJF program.
The Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival is presented by SIMA, and the sponsors are The City of Sydney, Creative Australia, Create NSW, Sound NSW and The Anthony & Sharon Lee Foundation.
This performance took place on October 24, 2025, at City Recital Hall, 2 Angel Place, Sydney, featuring the American singer Samara Joy with her American seven-piece band. The concert was opened by Kristin Berardi (vocals) and Sam Anning (double bass).
