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Samara Joy McLendon (born November 11, 1999) is an American jazz singer. She released her self-titled debut album in 2021 and was subsequently named Best New Artist by JazzTimes. Her second album, Linger Awhile (2022), reached number one on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart. She has received five Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist in 2023, and two wins each for Best Jazz Vocal Album (2023 and 2025) and Best Jazz Performance (2024 and 2025).
She first encountered jazz in a meaningful way when she enrolled in the jazz program at SUNY's Purchase College as a voice major, and was named an Ella Fitzgerald Scholar. Friends there introduced her to the recordings of great jazz vocalists including Sarah Vaughan and Fitzgerald, and such instrumentalists as Kenny Washington, Jon Faddis (with whom she studied), and Ingrid Jensen.
She released a number of viral video performances, including one that had been viewed more than 1.5 million times as of October 2020. These videos had as of November 2022 gained her 200,000 followers on TikTok. Partly on the strength of this success, she toured Europe, including a series of sold-out concerts in Italy and Austria. In 2021 and continuing into 2022, she toured the U.S., including bookings at the 2022 Monterey Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center Summer For The City's Jazz Underground series, Winter Jazzfest, and other festivals, as well as in Europe.
On February 15, 2022, she performed on Today with guitarist Pasquale Grasso and performed again on Today in September 2022. On June 15, 2022, she was featured at Carnegie Hall's 16th Annual Notable Occasion. and appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival. She was featured on jazz pianist Julius Rodriguez's 2022 album Let Sound Tell All.
On September 16, 2022, she released her second album, Linger Awhile, on Verve Records. The album features drummer Kenny Washington, guitarist Pasquale Grasso, pianist Ben Paterson, and bassist David Wong. Her bookings for Winter 2022 included singing with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on its Big Band Holidays tour.
She was nominated and won two awards at the Grammy Awards in 2023: Best Jazz Vocal Album for Linger Awhile and Best New Artist. Grammy Nominations, CNN, November 15, 2022.
| 2019 | Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition | Herself | |||
| 2021 | JazzTimes | Best New Artist | |||
| 2022 | Jazz Music Awards | Best New Jazz Artist | |||
| 2023 | Grammy Awards | Best New Artist | |||
| Best Jazz Vocal Album | Linger Awhile | ||||
| NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Jazz Album – Vocal | ||||
| 2024 | Grammy Awards | Best Jazz Performance | "Tight" | ||
| 2025 | Grammy Awards | "Twinkle Twinkle Little Me" (with Sullivan Fortner) | |||
| Best Jazz Vocal Album | A Joyful Holiday | ||||
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