Samara Joy, SUNY Purchase Class of 2021
Congratulations to SUNY Purchase alum Samara Joy, who took home two more GRAMMY awards at the 2025. Joy, who graduated in 2021, won for Best Jazz Performance and Best Jazz Vocal Album, which brings her total to five GRAMMY awards!
Samara Joy’s Bio reads, “With three GRAMMY wins and a chart-topping debut album already under her belt, 24-year-old Samara Joy makes her case to join the likes of Sarah, Ella, and Billie as the next mononymous jazz singing sensation recorded by the venerable Verve Records. Her voice, rich and velvety yet precociously refined, has already earned her fans like Anita Baker and Regina King and appearances on the TODAY Show, The Tonight Show w/Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show w/Stephen Colbert, CBS Mornings, Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson, and more, in addition to millions of likes on TikTok — securing her status as perhaps the first Gen Z jazz vocal star.
Samara is still relatively new to jazz. Growing up in the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx, it was music of the past — the music of her parent’s childhoods, as she put it — that she listened to most. She treasures her musical lineage, which stretches back to her grandparents Elder Goldwire and Ruth McLendon, both of whom performed with Philadelphia gospel group the Savettes, and runs through her father, who is a vocalist and bassist who toured with gospel artist Andraé Crouch.
Though she’s young, she relishes the process of digging through the music’s history. “I think maybe people connect with the fact that I’m not faking it, that I already feel embedded in it,” Samara says. “Maybe I’m able to reach people in person and on social media because it’s real.”
Samara began singing jazz as a senior at Fordham High School for the Arts and was awarded Best Vocalist at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition. Following her graduation as valedictorian, she attended the jazz program at SUNY Purchase, where she became the school’s Ella Fitzgerald Scholar and graduated Magna Cum Laude. While in college, she also won the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, one of the most sought-after honors for a rising jazz performer.
On her debut album for Verve Records, Linger Awhile, which was produced by Pierson and recorded by Chris Allen at Sear Sound in NYC. There are burnished, gleaming versions of chestnuts in “Misty,” “Linger Awhile” and “Someone To Watch Over Me,” transporting listeners to some romantic, long-lost supper club. Those familiar tunes are listed alongside some more unusual, if equally vintage selections: “Sweet Pumpkin,” a Ronnell Bright tune performed by the likes of Blue Mitchell and Gloria Lynne, and “Can’t Get Out Of This Mood,” which Samara uncovered on a collection of Sarah Vaughan rarities, add a lilting, upbeat bent to the album’s selections.
In February 2023, Samara took home two GRAMMYs — Best Jazz Vocal Album for Linger Awhile and the highly sought after Best New Artist statuette.
In October 2023 Samara released her holiday EP A Joyful Holiday, 6-song collection of seasonal favorites that included a rendition “O Holy Night” performed with multiple generations of her family. In December, accompanied by members of her family and other special guests, Samara toured the U.S., selling out nearly every performance.
