Ravinia 2024 Issue 5

Joy was born to the breed. Her grandparents, Elder Goldwire and Ruth McLendon, performed with the Philadelphia gospel group The Savettes, which began in the 1950s as an invest- ment club, and whom Billboard cited as an example of “soul gospel.” (The ensemble is still active.) Her father, Antonio McLendon, toured with gospel legend Andraé Crouch. It is another testament to her meteor- ic stardom that when she posted a video of Elder’s 93rd birthday party in which the family harmonized on “It is Well Within My Soul,” it received roughly four million views on TikTok, which she had only joined less than a year earlier. “I don’t think I fully realized how rich my family musical legacy is,” Joy told DownBeat . “I just thought it was normal that we get together and we sing. That’s what we do as a family. I’m just now realizing how special it is to have that kind of thing, spanning across gen- erations.” (She and her father duet on a live rendition of “The Christmas Song” on A Joyful Holiday .) Joy grew up in the Bronx. Her initial musical genres of choice were the gos- pel, R&B, soul and Motown treasures in her parents’ record collection. Jazz made its first impact on her when she was in college. She heard Sarah Vaughan’s ren- dition of Jimmy Davis, Roger Ramirez, and James Sherman’s “Lover Man,” a standard written for and popularized by Billie Holiday. “Being an African American wom- an,” she told DownBeat , “and to have this amazing art form that was created by Black people—and I didn’t know anything about it until I was 18, it was exciting. It was a challenge. It was beautiful. And I’m really grateful to have been connected to it and gotten this far singing it.” Joy’s deep dive into jazz’s rich his- tory and heritage is reflected on Linger Awhile . It contains breathtaking rendi- tions of standards like Errol Garner’s “Misty” and George Gershwin’s “Some- one to Watch Over Me,” but also “deep cuts” such as “Can’t Get Out of This Mood,” which Vaughan recorded for her self-titled 1950 debut album. She is steeped in the stuff. When Forbes asked her to imagine a jazz cruise with artists living or dead, she respond- ed, “I definitely would want Max Roach, a drummer. I would want the Duke El- lington Orchestra. Count Basie Orches- tra and Carmen McRae. Just like that. Oh. That would be such a great time. I would love to be a part of something like that.” Tony Bennett used to say that he nev- er sang the same song twice in concert. Joy is an advocate of that school. “I often find that pop stars, when they get a hit, people want to hear that hit exactly how it sounds on a record, and I get that,” Joy told Variety . “With me, I’m cool with having no hits if it means I get to experiment and sing the song different- ly, playing with the arrangement and the melodies.” Critics and jazz elders have been ecstatic in their huzzahs. “A sumptu- ous voice that sounds like butterscotch tastes,” praised The Arts Fuse . The Wash- ington Post noted her “velvety vocals.” The Wall Street Journal hailed her as “the next mononymous jazz singing sensa- tion” in such legendary company as Ella (Fitzgerald), Sarah (Vaughan) and Billie (Holiday). NPR declared she is “a classic jazz singer from a new generation.” In addition to being a mesmerizing interpreter, Joy is also a songwriter. “Nostalgia (The Day I Knew),” a dreamy track on Linger Awhile , was born out of an assignment in her jazz transcription class at SUNY Purchase. She transcribed Fats Navarro’s trumpet solo from the original 1947 recording and wrote lyrics to it. Her professor, trumpeter Jon Fad- dis, encouraged her to finish it. “If you can trade with an Ella Fitz- gerald, you’re fine,” he told NPR. “You’re on your way. She took the baton and ran with it, she’s like the Flo Jo [Olympic runner Florence Griffith Joyner] of jazz.” Joy is an answer to all those “think” pieces about jazz’s life expectancy. As a New York Times headline proclaimed, she “is helping jazz find fresh ears.” Her social media accounts are blowing up. She has more than 200,000 followers on the video platform TikTok. Her music video for “Tight” has garnered more than two million views on YouTube. As she told the Times , “This is a young music and [influences such as Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Bet- ty Carter, and Sarah Vaughan] did so much in their lives to draw people to this type of music; it deserves to be talk- ed about and shared. And as long as I’m passionate about it, that’s my goal—to share it.” D onald Liebenson is a Chicago-based entertainment writer. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune , Chicago Sun-Times , Los Angeles Times , and on RogerEbert.com. The first Ravinia concert he attended without his parents was Procol Harum in 1970. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUGUST 19 – SEPTEMBER 1, 2024 10 AMBEJ.WILLIAMS