Grammy Award winner Gregory Porter is “glad to make a return visit” to Pittsburgh.
The California native is beloved for his distinctive jazzy baritone voice. He finds jazz “attractive because of the range of emotion and subject matter.”
Porter is passionate about what’s considered “America’s music” pointing to jazz legends that performed the music in different ways.
“Think about the different characters in jazz from Louis Armstrong to Billie Holiday to Nat King Cole to Tony Bennett to Frank Sinatra; these different unique characters all with a unique voice and style,” he said.
He recognizes his fans in Pittsburgh supported him early in his career and their enthusiasm hasn’t waned.
“Every time I come there’s always a great enthusiastic jazz audience,” Porter said. “Generally I get Facebook messages from people demanding certain songs, but I do music from all of my albums.”
The song, “Take Me to the Alley,” from the album of the same name, was a 2017 Grammy Award winner inspired by his mother, Ruth, who passed away in 1994 from breast cancer.
“My mother was a person who encouraged us to look for the considered least one and look for the one who needs a helping hand. The song is a simple message about that really.”
The Alley is an actual street he says where he “learned how to sing on the sidewalk in front of a storefront church that my mother ran. She would preach and I would sing to the street people.”
The “Be Good” singer didn’t know as a child how much of a major influence his mother would eventually have on his musical career.
“She taught me how to sing and before she passed she encouraged me to continue on,” he said. “She always said ‘sing with an understanding, sing with an idea.’ I think that’s why I connect with audiences. I’m telling a story that connects with them.”
How has having a four year old son affected his music? He says that he “watches him and thinks about him hearing the songs in the way I listened to Nat King Cole’s music long after he was gone. ‘Nature Boy’ spoke to me a certain way. A lot of his message songs spoke to me a certain way.”
He wrote songs on his latest album “Take Me to the Alley” with the current political climate in mind. One of those songs he says is “Fan the Flames” a call to protest.
“Remember the most effective form of protest was Dr. King’s non-violent movement. Just remember the power of that.”
While he is a renown jazz and soul singer, Porter said he “would continue to work with hip hop artists.” In 2016 he and rapper/actor Common released the single “Running” in honor of World Refugee Day.
He’s currently putting together “an orchestra project – something that would involve the music of Nat King Cole.”
Gregory Porter will perform at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, 8 p.m. Wednesday, February 22.
Tene Croom
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