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Stories   >   Samara Joy & Nina Simone featured on WPSUPenn State Public Media: Jazz Archive

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Samara Joy & Nina Simone featured on WPSUPenn State Public Media: Jazz Archive

Posted: August 11, 2023

With a voice as smooth as velvet, SAMARA JOY’s star has been on the rise with each performance. Following her winning the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, she is currently recording her debut recording, which will feature Samara backed by the Pasquale Grasso Trio.

Her GRAMMY Award winning Verve Records debut, Linger Awhile, had the 22-year-old, make her case to join the likes of Sarah, Ella, and Billie as the next mononymous jazz singing sensation recorded by the venerable label. Her voice, rich and velvety yet precociously refined, has already earned her 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.

Nina Simone was one of the most extraordinary artists of the twentieth century, an icon of American music. She was the consummate musical storyteller, a griot as she would come to learn, who used her remarkable talent to create a legacy of liberation, empowerment, passion, and love through a magnificent body of works. She earned the moniker ‘High Priestess of Soul' for she could weave a spell so seductive and hypnotic that the listener lost track of time and space as they became absorbed in the moment. She was who the world would come to know as Nina Simone.

When Nina Simone died on April 21, 2003, she left a timeless treasure trove of musical magic spanning over four decades from her first hit, the 1959 Top 10 classic "I Loves You Porgy," to "A Single Woman," the title cut from her one and only 1993 Elektra album. While thirty-three years separate those recordings, the element of honest emotion is the glue that binds the two together – it is that approach to every piece of work that became Nina's uncompromising musical trademark.

By the end of her life, Nina was enjoying an unprecedented degree of recognition. Her music was enjoyed by the masses due to the CD revolution, discovery on the Internet, and exposure through movies and television. Nina had sold over one million CDs in the last decade of her life, making her a global catalog best-seller.

No one website can fully explore the many nuances and flavors that made up the more than 40 original albums in the Nina Simone library. This site and accompanying radio station contain many of Nina's finest works. However, we might not have had the chance to witness the breathtaking range of material Nina could cover if she hadn't taken the path she did.


An archive recording of the WPSU Jazz Show as broadcast on August 11, 2023 and hosted by Greg Petersen features tracks from Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Art Lund with Benny Goodman, Brad Mehldau Trio, Cannonball Adderley, Nina Simone, Pat Metheny, Samara Joy, Wallace Roney, Tony Bennett, Ray Brown Trio with Herb Ellis, Rick Hollander, Rachael & Vilray, Oscar Peterson Trio, Milt Jackson & Etta Jones, John Patitucci, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Costa, Diana Krall, and more.
 

Chris Pizzello / AP
 

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