A masterclass in phrasing, pace, and climax, Samara Joy’s concert at the Barbican Hall was a wonderful finish to this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival. The Bronx native has enjoyed a meteoric rise from winner of the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition to two-time Grammy Award winner (including ‘Best New Artist’). A modern day song stylist, Joy’s phrasing and inflection owe most notably to Vaughan and Betty Carter, but one can also hear shades of Anita Baker, the theatrical projection of Barbra Streisand, and more overtly gospel sensibilities too. My companion for the evening even noted an air of Jazmine Sullivan to some of the melismas during her Barbican set. Suggesting a maturity far beyond her twenty-four years, Joy displayed terrific range and rhythmic command: bold leaps into head voice on an a cappella intro to Charles Mingus’ ‘Reincarnation Of A Lovebird’, to the dexterous, octave-jumping staccato on Carter’s ‘Tight’. She delivered a devastating ‘Guess Who I Saw Today’, expertly balancing the narrator’s heartbreak and quiet rage while flooring the audience with a segue into Stevie Wonder’s ‘Lately’. With audience appetites whetted for her appearance next year at the Camden Roundhouse, she closed the evening with the melancholy slink of ‘Can’t Get Out of this Mood’.