Jazz vocalist Samara Joy, now 25, has won three Grammys. But when she auditioned for the jazz studies program in college, she says she knew just one jazz song.

That jazz song, and a hymn, got her through the audition in college, and now Joy is selling out concerts across the U.S. and Europe. 

“I never wanted to regret it,” she said. “I felt like I could always, even if I was in school for music, I could always get another job,” she said. “I just wanted to prioritize it first.”

The McLendon legacy

Joy may not have been read in on the jazz scene when she started at Purchase College in New York, but the Bronx native grew up in a musical family. And those Grammys she won? They’re with her parents. 

“Music is part of my family,” Joy said. “It’s an integral part of how we express ourselves and share, you know, love for each other.”

Joy’s dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles are all singers. Her grandfather, 94-year-old Elder Goldwire, sang with the acclaimed Savettes, a gospel group out of Philadelphia. Joy’s father, Tony McLendon, toured with gospel superstar Andrae Crouch. 

Gospel was the lifeblood of the McLendon household. Growing up surrounded by gospel music inspired Joy and influenced her voice, she said. 

“[It’s] been a part of my life, and in my ears, and in my voice for so long that it’s just an innate part of who I am,” she said. “It just reminds me that this is, this is for a higher purpose.”

Gospel influencing Joy as a jazz singer

Christian McBride, a world-renowned bassist who first heard Joy sing in 2019, said he heard something special in Joy’s voice. He was judging a competition Joy had entered at the time.

“She had such a mature sound and a way of having you believe what she was singing,” McBride said. “And we’re like, ‘Huh? Whose grandma is in that little body, in that young body?'”

He believes Joy’s gospel upbringing gives her voice an emotional depth not all jazz singers can muster. 

“In jazz, you get points for being smart. You get points for being creative. You don’t always get points for tapping into the emotional pool,” McBride said.

Joy intentionally leaned toward jazz professionally, even though she grew up with R&B and gospel. 

“If anything I kind of felt at home with jazz,” she said. “I felt like I could still be myself while I was learning about all of this, this new language. I could still absorb it and then apply it in my own way.”

Bringing her music to the world

Joy recorded her first songs in college, with help from her professors, and posted them online. Soon, she had a record deal. Joy released her first album just months after her 2021 graduation. 

She got her first Grammy nominations in 2022. Joy won both, including the Grammy for best new artist. 

Now with a bigger band, her third album, “Portrait,” is her most ambitious yet. She’s writing her own songs, drawing inspiration from the jazz canon of the 1940s and 1950s.

Music critics are comparing her to jazz royalty Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

“When I first got to Purchase, Ella and Sarah were the first people that I listened to,” Joy said of the comparison. “They were part of my fundamental, you know, core and fundamental foundation.”

From there, it was about making the music of jazz greats like Fitzgerald her own. 

“Listening to her, and listening to all of these singers, I feel like it allowed me to, to shape my idea of what my role could be as a vocalist. Not just learn the melody, sing the melody and that’s it,” Joy said. “But you really have to think like a musician and open your ears to what’s happening around you so that you can contribute to it and interact with it.”

Bill Whitaker

Bill Whitaker is an award-winning journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent who has covered major news stories, domestically and across the globe, for more than four decades with CBS News.