Last week, jazz vocalist Samara Joy was eagerly awaiting her gig that evening at the White House, where she’d perform holiday tunes for President Joe Biden at the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony.

But she was less excited about who she was singing for than who she was singing with: Her father, musician-producer Antonio McLendon.

“I realize how special it is, to share this moment with people who inspired me to sing in the first place,” Joy said by phone from Washington, D.C.

Born Samara Joy McLendon and raised in the Bronx, she dropped her surname when she cut her first album in 2021. But now that she’s the most acclaimed young singer in jazz — she won the Best New Artist Grammy in February — the 24-year-old singer wants the whole world to know she’s a McLendon.

On Sunday afternoon, she’ll headline the Longhorn Ballroom as part of “A Joyful Holiday Featuring the McLendon Family,” including her dad, her uncle Laurone McLendon and her cousins Tommy Niblack and T Lovey Rowe. Backed by a piano-based quartet, they’ll perform Christmas tunes as well as songs from Joy’s 2022 breakout album, Linger Awhile.

This conversation with Joy has been edited for clarity.

You grew up in such a musical family, starting with your grandparents, Ruth and Elder Goldwire McLendon, who were members of the Philly gospel group the Savettes. What was your childhood like?

I mean, music was everywhere. My mom grew up on Soul Train and Philly Soul and shared all this beautiful music with me. My dad, he’s a bass player and a singer and had a home studio, and he’d even let me sing background on some of his songs.

He got me an iPod, and he and my uncle transferred songs onto it … I remember listening to George Benson, Stevie (Wonder), Chaka (Khan) and Luther (Vandross). One of my favorites was Kim Burrell, a Texas singer with such a unique voice. I’d put on her album Everlasting Life on repeat and listen to it all the time.

You have such an incredible voice yourself. I know you sang in gospel choirs as a child, but at what point did you realize you had a gift, that singing could be your career?

I remember as early as sixth grade, joining my middle school play and being fascinated with all the details, figuring out how to make my voice sound deeper or brighter to match the character’s emotions during a play or during a song.

That’s when I knew I loved the craft. But that’s not necessarily when I knew I had a gift, because I was always quite insecure about my voice.

When did you finally get confident? When did it all click?

I would say a couple weeks ago (laughs). I don’t know. It took a while to get over the butterflies and the nerves. I graduated from college in May of 2021, and I’ve been on tour ever since, singing every night, being a leader out front, and it kind of forced me to come out of my shell and share what I’m passionate about. I figured this is the one thing that I love … I don’t want to be nervous about this, you know?

I find it amazing that you didn’t fall in love with jazz until you were 18, and then, a year later, you won the prestigious Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. How did that transformation happen so quickly?

I didn’t really connect with jazz until I got to college, which doesn’t sound right. I’m from New York, you know, born and raised with all these jazz clubs around me, but I never stepped foot into them until I got to college and joined the jazz studies program, hoping it would develop my voice.

As soon as I got there (the State University of New York at Purchase), I met all of these friends who were so interested in this music that I knew nothing about. It inspired me to want to know more.

I started listening to Sarah Vaughan’s live recordings, pretty much all of my freshman and sophomore year, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, how did she make her voice sound so smooth and so deep? And then all of a sudden, she’s floating on air in her higher register!” The more that I listened, the more I had the goal to sing a song a different way every time I sang it, to apply my own ideas when it comes to harmony. As I grew, the ideas started to flow naturally.

Do you think your gospel/R&B influences helped you become a jazz singer?

Absolutely. Honestly, I feel like I was at an advantage not listening to jazz as I was growing up, because it allowed me to absorb all of these different styles that I can infuse into what I’m doing now, without trying to force it.

When I was singing in church, gospel-wise, I was thinking about the power of my voice and being able to sing with the same power that my dad sang with or other singers alongside me did. So what I learned from gospel translated for sure into jazz, being able to sing with dynamics, along with the smoothness and clarity of R&B singers I listened to, like Jill Scott and Layla Hathaway.

You seem very savvy about the music business. After some of your videos went viral, you paid for the recording of your first two albums and then licensed them to record companies (UK-based Whirlwind for Samara Joy and Verve for Linger Awhile). Is that correct?

Yes. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that it wasn’t my idea, but my manager’s (Matt Pierson). When I was first getting into the business, I didn’t know anything about it. He encouraged me to use the winnings from the Sarah Vaughan competition to fund the next record, and then I would own it.

My family definitely warned me about the music business. They’re very supportive, but they cautioned me to be aware, to protect myself, and to think about what I wanted and find the people that would help me get to that point. Because at the end of the day, nobody knows what I want for myself, except for me.

The fact that all of it is coming together so beautifully is beyond anything that I could have planned. I have a great team, I’m glad that I still have my head on straight, and I know what I want going forward.

Samara Joy performs in “A Joyful Holiday featuring The McLendon Family” at 2 p.m. Sunday Dec. 10 at the Longhorn Ballroom, 216 Corinth St., Dallas. longhornballroom.com.