Last night, 24-year-old jazz singer Samara Joy wowed the crowd at the Blue Note in New York with a voice as smooth as velvet. Her album, Linger Awhile, is out now.

After winning the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, Samara Joy’s star seems to rise with each performance.

“I was suddenly on the jazz radar. It’s still bizarre to think of how fast things have progressed.”

Her rich and velvety yet precociously refined voice has already earned fans like Anita Baker and Regina King, appearances on the TODAY Show, and millions of likes on TikTok — cementing her status as perhaps the first Gen Z jazz singing star. On Linger Awhile, Samara will introduce that massive audience to a slew of classic standards several times older than she is through her timeless, irresistible sound.

Samara Joy’s gentle rendition of Guess Who I Saw Today, originally popularized by Nancy Wilson, showcases the young singer’s exceptional control, range, and refined, distinctive style.

Her album’s release is just one more step for the ascendant vocalist, who will spend the rest of the year touring increasingly large stages — still shocked to be performing in front of thousands who hang on every word. “I’m still very much a student, even though I’ve graduated,” Samara says. “So this is only the beginning… there is much, much more to come.”

One can only hope that one day Samara Joy will record one of my songs like the new Holiday classic, Pink Champagne, by Ivan Hampden Jr. and Paulette McWilliams.