Grammys’ best new artist comes to Seattle, and other jazz shows to catch

When 23-year-old vocalist Samara Joy wowed the crowd at Seattle’s Jazz Alley last June, she was not widely known beyond the jazz cognoscenti. That all changed a couple of weeks ago when she won two Grammy Awards — one for her sparkling second album, “Linger Awhile,” and another for best new artist. Three days later, her March 17 Seattle show at Town Hall sold out.

It’s rare for a jazz artist to snag best new artist, but Grammy voters seem to have sensed Joy’s enormous promise. When she sang the sultry song “Can’t Get Out of This Mood” at the afternoon (pre-broadcast) performance in Los Angeles, her poise, accuracy and relaxed confidence made it clear she has a long career ahead. Raised in New York, Joy found her jazz calling in college and in 2019 won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition. Vaughan has been a major inspiration, an influence you can hear in Joy’s cool, roomy alto and deep emotional reserve.

Joy is part of a dynamite spring series presented by Earshot Jazz that also includes the incomparable composer, bandleader and seven-time Grammy winner Maria Schneider, who will appear in Seattle for only the second time with her full ensemble on Feb. 28 (at Town Hall). The orchestra is celebrating its 30^th anniversary.

“I think we started the first week of March, 1993,” said Schneider in a phone interview earlier this month from her family home in Windom, Minnesota, where she was sorting through old files. “It’s fun to look back and read all the articles. It’s a chance to give myself a pat on the back, which I never do. I’m always feeling guilty and constantly pushing myself.”

The most recent example of that pushing is the groundbreaking, Grammy-winning (and Pulitzer Prize finalist) double album she released in 2020, “Data Lords,” a full-frontal attack on Big Tech. The darkness and militance of the music caught some of her fans off guard, accustomed as they were to a more pastoral, uplifting optimism.

“People are starting to be aware of what it means to have your data taken and have it turned on you,” she said. “And how our world has become politically so divisive, because of everyone being in their own internet silo. I just wrote a piece about that, ‘American Crow.’ ”

Schneider said she may play “American Crow” here, and certainly will present material from “Data Lords,” as well as old favorites. But if you want to hear a recording, you’ll have buy it from ArtistShare, an artist-centric platform she has been using for almost 20 years. No streaming services for Schneider. Indeed, her anger at Big Tech stemmed in part from personal experience, when her early optimism that the internet would be a liberating force for artists went sour.

“This album cost almost a quarter of a million dollars,” she said. “If it was only streaming on Spotify, what would I make?” she asked. “Three hundred dollars?” (For the record, she has already recouped her investment through sales.)

Even before “Data Lords,” darkness had begun to seep back into Schneider’s music in her 2014 collaboration with David Bowie, “Sue (or In A Season of Crime).”

“David made me see how the dark side is really fun and doesn’t have to be morose,” she said. “When I sent him the music, he wrote back, ‘My work here is done.’ ”

There’s still time to plan for Schneider, but if you want to catch another very special show on the spur of the moment, on Feb. 17, ex-Seattleite guitarist Bill Frisell’s new group, FOUR (Greg Tardy, reeds; Gerald Clayton, piano; Rudy Royston, drums), plays a double bill at the Moore Theatre with the great young trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire’s quartet (Sam Harris, piano; Linda Oh, bass; Tim Angulo, drums).

Frisell’s new album, also titled “FOUR,” is a subtle, quiet affair that nicely features Tardy’s clarinet and Frisell’s endearingly twangy, wistful spirit, including a welcome update of “Good Dog Happy Man.” Akinmusire is a modern wonder, a trumpet player with dazzling chops who also operates at an intuitive, abstract level that shows the influence of avant-gardist Don Cherry. Akinmusire’s new album on Blue Note, “on the tender spot of every calloused moment,” waxes tense and deep.

And if you’re getting to this roundup early in the week, don’t miss the first show in the Earshot series, on Feb. 16 at The Royal Room, by Sexmob, the zany, irreverent New York quartet led by slide trumpet player Steven Bernstein and featuring ex-Seattleite Briggan Krauss on saxophone.