Some singers grow into a room. Samara Joy fills it the moment she opens her mouth. For the past several years, the young vocalist from the Bronx has been the most celebrated new voice in jazz, collecting Grammy Awards, selling out concert halls around the world, and introducing a new generation of listeners to the Great American Songbook. Yet until now, the closest most fans could get to the thrill of hearing her live was a ticket in the balcony. That changed on October 23, 2026, when Verve Records released Live at the Blue Note L.A., Samara Joy’s first ever live recording, a five track EP that captures her and her touring septet at the height of their powers in an intimate club setting.

The recording was made during Joy’s sold out run at Blue Note Los Angeles in April 2026, and it does exactly what a great live album should do. It brings listeners into the room. You can hear the hush before a ballad, the band leaning into a chorus, and the audience responding as Joy bends a phrase in a direction no one saw coming. For a singer whose studio records have been praised for their polish and poise, this release offers something different and equally valuable: the spontaneity, risk, and sheer joy of a performer feeding off a crowd.

The Club and the Moment

The Blue Note name has been synonymous with jazz since the original club opened in Greenwich Village in 1981, and the brand’s expansion to Hollywood brought that legacy to the West Coast. Blue Note Los Angeles quickly became one of the city’s most coveted rooms, a place where the energy of a major concert meets the closeness of a jazz club. For Joy, accustomed to playing grand concert halls, a residency there offered a rare chance to share space with an audience at arm’s length, and the decision to roll tape proved inspired.

That intimacy is the beating heart of the EP. On a large stage, the subtleties of Joy’s craft can sometimes be swallowed by the size of the room. In a club, every breath, every dynamic swell, and every flicker of humor comes through. The result is a recording that feels less like a document of a performance and more like an invitation to be part of one.

Four Standards, Made New

The program is built around four towering songs from the jazz canon, each one a test that has humbled countless singers. Joy opens with Thelonious Monk’s “‘Round Midnight,” perhaps the most famous ballad ever written by a jazz composer, a piece whose angular beauty and late night melancholy demand both technical command and emotional honesty. From there she turns to Jerome Kern’s “Yesterdays,” a 1933 show tune that jazz musicians long ago claimed as their own, its minor key longing giving her septet room to stretch.

The emotional center of the EP may well be Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life,” one of the most sophisticated and challenging songs in American music. Strayhorn wrote it as a teenager in Pittsburgh, years before he became Duke Ellington’s indispensable collaborator, and its world weary lyric and winding harmonic path have made it a rite of passage for serious vocalists. Singers from Nat King Cole to Johnny Hartman have left definitive versions, and Joy approaches it with the confidence of an artist who has earned her place in that company.

The set closes in a sunnier key with “No More Blues,” the English language version of Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “Chega de Saudade,” the song often credited with launching the bossa nova movement in Brazil. It is a song Joy already knows well, having recorded it on her Grammy winning album Portrait, and on stage it becomes a joyous showcase for her septet. A short reprise follows, capturing the kind of encore moment that only happens live, when a band and an audience are simply not ready to let a great evening end.

Her Septet, Her Sound

One of the most rewarding aspects of the EP is how clearly it documents the band that has become central to Joy’s identity as an artist. Her touring septet, four horns fronting a three piece rhythm section, functions like a compact big band, delivering inventive, carefully crafted arrangements while leaving room for soloists to shine. Many of the musicians are rising young players of Joy’s own generation, and their chemistry, honed across countless nights on the road, gives the music a sense of shared purpose that is impossible to fake.

That band was at the heart of Portrait, the 2024 album Joy recorded with her touring group at the legendary Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the same room where Rudy Van Gelder engineered John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and countless classics for the Blue Note and Impulse! labels. Portrait won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album, bringing Joy’s career total to six. Hearing the same musicians in front of a live audience on Live at the Blue Note L.A. is like watching a photograph come to life.

From Newark Winner to Global Star

Joy’s rise has been one of the most remarkable stories in modern jazz, and it has a strong New Jersey chapter. Born Samara McLendon in the Bronx, she grew up in a deeply musical family. Her grandparents were part of the Philadelphia gospel group The Savettes, and her father worked as a musician in gospel circles, so singing was woven into her childhood long before she discovered jazz. She came to the music in earnest while studying at SUNY Purchase, and in 2019, still a college student, she won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition at NJPAC in Newark, the same contest that crowns a new champion at this year’s TD James Moody Jazz Festival on November 22.

Her self titled debut followed in 2021, and her Verve debut, Linger Awhile, turned her into a phenomenon in 2022. Clips of her singing spread widely on social media, drawing listeners who had never before considered themselves jazz fans. At the 2023 Grammy Awards, she won Best New Artist, a category jazz musicians almost never win, along with Best Jazz Vocal Album, and the wins kept coming in the years that followed. Through it all, Joy has remained rooted in the tradition, singing standards with the depth and rich tone that inevitably draw comparisons to Sarah Vaughan herself. New Jersey audiences have had a front row view of that journey, most recently when she brought her septet to State Theatre New Jersey in New Brunswick this October, an evening previewed on Explore New Jersey.

Formats and What Comes Next

For collectors, Live at the Blue Note L.A. is available on standard black vinyl and CD, as well as a limited U.S. exclusive sunburst colored vinyl pressing that makes a striking addition to any shelf. The EP is also available on all major digital platforms, making it easy to share with friends who have yet to discover what the excitement is about.

Joy remains on the road, headlining London’s Royal Festival Hall during the EFG London Jazz Festival this month before resuming her North American tour in early 2027, with stops planned in cities including Houston, New Orleans, and Birmingham. Each new date only adds to the sense that she is one of the defining artists of her era. With Live at the Blue Note L.A., fans finally have a record that captures what so many concertgoers already know: as gifted as she is in the studio, Samara Joy on a stage, with her band behind her and an audience in front of her, is something else entirely.

Hear It Live on The Improv Cafe’

This is precisely the kind of recording our Wednesday night program was made for. Live at the Blue Note celebrates music recorded live in the clubs and on classic live albums, the performances where artists take their biggest chances and the magic of the moment is preserved forever. The Blue Note name has long stood for great music, great energy, and the unique electricity that only happens when musicians and audience share a room, with jazz, blues, and soul filling the air night after night. Every Wednesday night, our show brings that atmosphere to you, wherever you happen to be listening. Pour a drink, dim the lights, and let the band take you somewhere special.