For immediate release: December 1, 2017
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
603.646.3991
Grammy Winner Gregory Porter to Perform on February 13
HANOVER, NH—Two-time Grammy winner Gregory Porter—a singer with both high standing as jazz artist and enormous crossover appeal—will perform on Thursday, February 13, at 7 pm, in Spaulding Auditorium of the Hopkins Center for the Arts.
Porter is a soulful crooner, bluesy truth teller and nuanced jazz singer—and an extraordinarily gifted songwriter, penning tunes full of “tantalizing wordplay, grown-up subject matter and flowing melodies” (TheTelegraph, UK). Accompanied by a subtle band that gives him lots of space in which to ply his butterscotch baritone, he tunnels to the soul on songs that console, confess and gracefully acknowledge life’s joys and sorrows—“a jazz singer of thrilling presence … with a gift for earthy refinement and soaring uplift.”(The New York Times).
Porter performs at the Hop with a backing band of musicians—led by pianist Albert “Chip” Crawford—with whom he bonded musically in a Harlem jam session years ago. “We have played so much together that it was only natural that when things started happening for me that I would use them,” Porter told an interviewer. “We know each other so well. I love what they all do. And Chip, he knows what I like. He's got that feeling! He knows how to connect Coltrane, the church and rhythm and blues.”
Instantly recognizable for his former football player’s physique and trademark three-piece suit accessorized with a hat with earflaps, Porter wields one of the most captivating voices in music today, capable of conveying enormous soul, warmthand intellect, with grace and restraint. “We haven’t had a male singer like him in a long time,” jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater told JazzTimes, adding,“He’s such a wonderful writer. He’s a story teller.”
An artist whose music is at once timeless yet utterly of its time, Porterhas twice won the Grammy for “Best Jazz Vocal Album”—in2013 for his Blue Note debut,Liquid Spirit,and in 2017 for Take Me to the Alley. While undeniably echoing the legacy of jazz and soul’s yesteryear, both albums have found listeners far beyond the jazz aficionado pool, with singles ranking high on the charts for CD purchasing and streaming.
Some of that appeal is Porter’s singular voice, a robust jazz instrument with soulful touches á la Bill Withers and Donny Hathaway. In addition is his songwriting, which addresses topics ranging from hopeless crushes to pleas for social justice, employing pungent word choices, disarming honesty and beguiling melodies. As befits the son of a minister mother, his writing includes occasional Biblical references, as in the title song Take Me to the Alley, which depicts the arrival of a “king” who’s unimpressed with riches and “every sort of shiny thing” but instead asks:“Take me to the alley/Take me to the afflicted ones/Take me to the lonely ones that somehow lost their way.”
Always, however, his music is tethered to a jazz sensibility and to his own spirit, writes The Guardian. “Even the poppiest songs come underpinned by intriguingly chewy chord progressions and a drummer with a noticeably exploratory approach to rhythm…no matter how velvety things get, there’s a grit in Porter’s voice that scrapes against the smoothness…an affecting wince of pain, at odds with his reputation for baritone mellowness…it still sounds less like music made for a mass market than that of a man who happened to have found one while following his own path.”
MORE ABOUT…
Gregory Porter (singer-songwriter)
Born in 1971 inSacramento, Calif., Porter was raised in Bakersfield along with his seven siblings by his mother, Ruth, who was a minister. Porter cites the Bakersfield Southern Gospel sound, as well as his mother’s Nat King Cole record collection, as fundamental influences on his own sound. Porter began singing in small jazz clubs in San Diego while attending San Diego State University on a football scholarship, where he played outside linebacker. A shoulder injury during his first season in college cut short his football career, but the college let him keep his scholarship and he pursued a degree in city planning. Without football, Porter had extra time on his hands and used it to study theater, go to jazz clubs and sit in on jam sessions (as a child he’d sung in amateur productions and in pieces staged by the church where his mother was a minister). Eventually Porter chose to pursue music full-time at the encouragement of local musicians, including his mentor Kamau Kenyatta.
But two years later his mother, who had raised her children single-handed, died of breast cancer when Porter was 21, and everything went on hold. During the last days of her life they talked for hours and hours. Near the end, she talked to him about singing, about using his voice. “She said, ‘It’s the best thing you do, so sing.’” Porter cites his three musical influences as his mother, his (absent) father and Nat King Cole.
He built up his first professional experience in theater and, in 1996, got a lead role in the Denver debut ofIt Ain’t Nothing But the Blues, which transferred to Broadway before touring. Porter also wrote and performed a tribute to Nat King Cole. “In the absence of my father, I would listen to Nat King Cole as a child, and imagine him as my father and think of the songs in that way.”
In 2004,Porter moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn with his brother Lloyd. He worked as a chef at Lloyd's restaurant Bread-Stuy (now defunct), where he also performed. Porter began performing at other neighborhood venues including Sista's Place and Solomon's Porch, and moved on to Harlem club St. Nick's Pub, where he maintained a weekly residency. Out of this residency evolved what would become Porter's touring band, who now accompanies Porter on an intensive touring schedule of 200-300 dates per year around the globe. He recently moved with his wife, Victoria, and four-year-old son from Brooklyn to his hometown of Bakersfield, California.
Porter did not get his start as a recording artist until he was hitting 40, when his independently-released 2010 debut caught the ears of jazz aficionados. Porter’s criticallyacclaimed and Grammy-nominated albums Water (2010) and Be Good (2012)made him the “go to” guest vocalist on several pop and jazz albums from artists as varied as acid jazz band Zbonics to contemporary jazz singer Dianne Reeves. Legendary jazz label Blue Note Records signed him for his 2013 release, Liquid Spirit. The album’s popularity grew quickly, selling a million albums worldwide and becoming the most streamed jazz album of all-time with over 20 million streams. The album sold Platinum in the UK and Germany, and in the US Porter made his first-ever national TV appearances on The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live while Esquire and NPR Music both declared him “America’s Next Great Jazz Singer.” Liquid Spirit also won Porter his first Grammy Award in 2014 for Best Jazz Vocal Album while also earning him a Best Traditional R&B Performance nomination for his affecting ballad Hey Laura.
In the fall of 2015 Porter finally found the time to return to the studio in New York City to record Take Me To The Alley. As he’s done on his previous three albums, Porter teamed with producer Kamau Kenyatta to craft a collection of stirring originals that juxtapose the personal and political. Take Me To The Alley won a Grammy Award forBest Jazz Vocal Albumin 2017.
The Hopkins Center for the Arts
Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.
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An Evening with Gregory Porter
At once a soulful crooner, bluesy truth teller and nuanced jazz artist, two-time Grammy winner Gregory Porter is also an extraordinarily gifted songwriter, penning tunes full of “tantalizing wordplay, grown-up subject matter and flowing melodies” (The Telegraph, UK). Accompanied by a subtle band that gives him lots of space in which to ply his butterscotch baritone, he tunnels to the soul on songs that console, confess and gracefully acknowledge life’s joys and sorrows.
Thursday, February 13, at 7 pm
Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover NH
$25-30, $10 Dartmouth students, $17-19 18 and under
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
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