Douye' presents: It's A Lovely Day
jazz vibes it's a cool mood
Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based jazz vocalist and songwriter Douyé announces Stay With Me, her forthcoming sixth album and the first of her jazz albums to include original songs.
Arriving June 26, 2026, the 13-track album places three new songs by Douyé and Rufus Bordal among 10 Great American Songbook standards arranged and largely co-produced by pianist George Cables.Recorded in two complementary settings — standards arranged by Cables at Sear Sound in New York and originals arranged by pianist/arranger Mina Choi at The Village Studios in Los Angeles — Stay With Me frames Douyé’s songwriting inside the classic language she has spent years making her own.
For Douyé, the originals mark a decisive step. She wanted the new pieces to sit naturally beside the Great American Songbook standards around them, carrying the same melodic directness, lyrical clarity, and emotional purpose.
“I’ve always written,” Douyé says. “Before I came into the jazz world, I used to do R&B and classic soul, but this is my first time adding originals to one of my jazz albums. I wrote about 10 songs and chose three. I wanted to see if they could blend with the rest of the album, so someone might hear one of them and think, ‘Is that one of those jazz standards I didn’t know?’ That was important to me.”
Douyé had never worked with Cables before, but trusted his ear from the beginning. He arranged and co-produced those tracks, played piano on ten of the songs, helped assemble the New York band, and gave the songs room to breathe.
For the standards, Cables appears with bassist Sean Conly and drummer Jerome Jennings, joined on select tracks by saxophonist Craig Handy and trumpeters Joe Magnarelli and John Bailey. When Douyé brought Cables a pool of possible material, they independently gravitated toward many of the same choices.
“George is a legend, ” Douyé says. “His take on the music is timeless; it reminds me of the old jazz sound. Everything he did just sat right. I never felt I had to say, ‘Take this out, ’ or ‘Maybe we should do it another way.’ I really appreciate his musicianship, his mastery, and what he brought to this album.
”Pianist/arranger Mina Choi helps Douyé bring the originals fully into focus. Introduced to Douyé through Cables, she arranged two of the originals, co-arranged the third with Douyé, and co-produced all three songs with her at The Village Studios in Los Angeles.
The original songs feature Choi with bassist Edwin Livingston, drummer Clayton Cameron, and saxophonist Barclay Moffitt, with trumpeter Kye Palmer appearing on two of the three tracks.
“I listened to Mina’s work and immediately fell in love with her sound, ” Douyé says. “The way she puts things together, her arrangements, all of that — I have a lot of love and respect for her.”
Douyé’s road to Stay With Me began in Lagos, Nigeria, where her father, Landy Youduba, introduced her to jazz and encouraged her to sing. After moving to Los Angeles, she studied voice at Musicians Institute in Hollywood and met British songwriter Terry Shaddick, best known for co-writing Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical.”
Their collaboration shaped 2012’s Journey and led into 2014’s So Much Love, an R&B/soul collection that continued her songwriting path while keeping her African roots in view. With 2017’s Daddy Said So, Douyé turned directly toward jazz with a 14-song standards album whose title honored her father’s request that she sing jazz.
2019’s Quatro (Bossa Nova Deluxe) connected bossa nova, samba, American jazz, and African roots, while 2023’s The Golden Sèkèrè placed sèkèrè, talking drum, and African rhythmic language inside a Great American Songbook program featuring Sean Jones, Lionel Loueke, and Buster Williams. After that album’s propulsive, percussion-and-groove-fueled energy, Stay With Me turns inward.
“Compared to my last album, it’s like night and day, ” Douyé says. “The Golden Sèkèrè had a lot of energy and groove. This one is more like, let’s relax, sip on a nice drink, and listen to songs of life stories.
”Stay With Me opens with “Autumn in New York, ” a Vernon Duke standard Douyé calls “one of those timeless ones, ” then moves to Irving Berlin’s “It’s A Lovely Day,” which she chose partly because she rarely hears it sung.
Duke Ellington’s “Love You Madly” continues the classic thread, while Tommy Wolf and Fran Landesman’s “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most” gives Douyé one of the album’s most demanding interpretive moments. She follows with a swinging treatment of Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s “Days of Wine and Roses” before “Stay With Me” introduces the first of the album’s originals.
The title track became the album’s center because it carried the project’s temperament: gentle, subtle, welcoming, and sweet. “It’s saying, I want you to be here with me,” Douyé says.
“It’s not too fast, it’s not too slow, and it encapsulates the entire album. I said, "That's the title.”
For Frank Loesser’s “I’ve Never Been In Love Before,” Douyé and Cabless trip the setting down to voice and piano, leaving space for the lyric to breathe.
“Give Me The Simple Life, ” by Rube Bloom and Harry Ruby, brings lift and attitude while carrying one of the album’s clearest life lessons.
“She’s got a bite to her, ” Douyé says. “A little attitude. But simplicity is key in life, and I really enjoyed doing that one.” The album’s deeper ache comes through Ellington’s “In My Solitude,” featuring Joe Magnarelli on trumpet.
“Polka Dots And Moonbeams,” which Douyé first heard only a few years ago, brought a more immediate response: “The first time I heard it, I fell in love with it,” she says.
“What a beautiful tune, and what a great melody.” The second original, “Where To Be, ” brings one of the album’s livelier tempos and a lyric about love’s renewal: “Someone found love, and they’re happy, ” Douyé says.
“It makes them feel childlike again.” “You Go To My Head,” featuring John Bailey, extends the album’s aura of longing.Stay With Me closes with “Day To Day,” the album’s final original and its most personal statement. Written by Douyé and Bordal and arranged by Choi, the song was inspired by her father, Landy.
“Every time I talk about my dad, I get emotional,” she says.
“That emotion gave me the strength to write it. When we recorded it, I was somewhat teary. I didn’t want to say, ‘This is dedicated to my dad, ’ but he was in my head.”
That connection brings Stay With Me back to the promise that first ledDouyé toward jazz. It also reflects the way she carries her Nigerian identity into the American Songbook.
“I’m Nigerian, and I always will be,” she says.
“I’m proud to be Nigerian. That Nigerian juice is inside of me. It’s in everything I do, everything I say, and my persona.”
Of the finished album, Douyé says, inviting, mature, and full of storytelling.” “Stay With Me has a timeless sound!
Listen the single It's A Lovely Day
