Just four years out of college and with a voice that traverses generations, Brooklyn songstress Samara Joy lifts the auditorium roof off before she even opens her mouth when she makes her entrance at Sydney’s sold-out City Recital Hall.

The audience erupts in wild whistles, shouts and screams for a reception usually reserved for rock gods at their first chance to see the woman who, at 25, has won five Grammies and has been compared with the likes of Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday – three of her idols who each get a mention or tribute in her hour-long set.

Samara Joy, City Recital Hall, Sydney. Photo © Shane Rozario

Her crème de la crème seven-piece band plays a brief introduction before Joy makes her entrance in a shimmering white dress with microphone in hand, starts by apologising for “coming off the back of a cold” and makes light of any “squeaks” we might hear. She need not worry as there is barely a clue from her seven-song set that she is under the weather – energy levels are at a high and...