By Jerome Langston
It is just a few days following his Carnegie Hall debut with twenty-something, jazz superstar vocalist, Samara Joy, that tenor saxophonist, Kendric McCallister, is chatting with me about their upcoming concert here at Norfolk’s Chrysler Hall. One of the expected stand-out concert performances as part of the current season of our prestigious Virginia Arts Festival, the headlining Chrysler Hall engagement, follows last year’s VAF debut by Samara, where she played to a packed audience at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts. Chrysler Hall of course, has a much bigger capacity though… so having Samara play a much bigger room, reflects the confidence that Rob Cross, VAF’s founder and artistic director, has in her growing cultural reach and popularity.
“Being an artist is a very difficult thing… You can be very talented. You can be very honest about what you’re doing, but it still has to, in some way… connect to an audience if you want to have this kind of path,” notes Kendric, who grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida. “We’re just happy that we’re able to bridge that gap, between our musical minds, and our artistic vision, with the interest and likes of the listeners,” Kendric adds. He says that amongst their octet, which includes Samara, they often reflect on how grateful they are, for the level of success that they get to enjoy.
Samara’s recent April 30th debut at the storied Carnegie Hall, is when, according to Kendric, it really “sunk in” what the scale of their success had become. “We were up there on that stage, and a few of the band members were like ‘man it was actually very emotional,’ for each of us individually to be on that stage playing music that we’ve written, and composed, and arranged,” says Kendric. He tells me that they don’t take those huge, career moments for granted.
Recently Samara told Vibe magazine writer, Mya Abraham, about a surreal connection that she has to the iconic NYC venue. “There’s a picture of me literally in a Carnegie Hall shirt in sixth grade singing, I think it was like ‘America The Beautiful’ or something like that. But to see that picture and have Carnegie Hall stamped on it, and not even know I would be making my debut there is a wild connection, but I’m excited,” she told the journalist, about the reportedly sold-out concert.
Since releasing 2022’s Linger Awhile, via the legendary Verve Records, these remarkable career milestones have just continued to pile up for the gifted, young jazz singer. It won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and led to her Best New Artist Grammy win as well, which generated international attention. The album even charted on the Billboard 200, which is a rare achievement for a true jazz album. Since then, she has won an additional 3 Grammys, for a total of five now, and has toured around the world, playing to packed audiences here in the states, and in Europe. It was at SUNY Purchase, where the Bronx native really discovered jazz though, and first met Kendric, who was enrolled there as part of the same class. Many of her current collaborators go back to her college days at SUNY.
I asked Kendric during our chat — his opinion of her development as an artist, from those early days to now. He says that she was shy but really committed to studying and learning the music. In other words, despite her notable gospel lineage pedigree, she wasn’t just a naturally talented vocalist who easily took to jazz. “She studied the history of the music. She listened to so many recordings of jazz, not just singers… but Thelonius Monk, and Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn. She began to really develop a strong relationship and love for their music as well,” he notes. “She just took on that role and that weight of learning everything, and absorbing everything that she possibly could, for the sake of… because she loved it, and she wanted to learn about it,” adds Kendric, who received his own Grammy nomination for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals, for his gorgeous work on her rendition of the classic, “Lush Life.”
When Samara returns to the Virginia Arts Festival — but this time playing our locally storied Chrysler Hall, she will be joined by some remarkable, and mainly young musicians, whom she’s developed great artistic chemistry with over these several years. Kendric plays tenor saxophone and clarinet. Then there’s David Mason on alto-sax and flute. Jason Charos plays trumpet, while Connor Rohrer plays piano. Donavan Austin is on trombone. Paul Sikivie plays the bass, and their octet is rounded out by Evan Sherman on drums. Verve released Portrait last October, her proper follow-up studio album, which has garnered well-deserved critical acclaim. As with Linger Awhile, Kendric contributes to the new album as well, writing 3 of the arrangements. She is expected to perform music from that new album, during her upcoming Chrysler Hall show. As for the band’s future, and his individual future goals, Kendric wants to eventually put out a suite of new music. And he also wants to teach students, via master classes and clinics. “Sometimes we get different audience members, and they’re like ‘you guys are just unreal,’ we’re very real… it just took quite a lot of time.”
WANT TO GO?
Samara Joy
Presented by Virginia Arts Festival
June 7
Chrysler Hall
