Gregory Porter is a Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

-nominated jazz vocalist for his 2010 release, Water, on Motéma Music

Motéma Music

Motéma Music is an American record label focused on jazz and world music, as well as other creative projects by virtuosic musicians who also compose. It was founded by Jana Herzen in 2003, and is now based in Harlem, New York City...

. He was also a member of the original Broadway cast of It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues

It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues

It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues is a musical revue written by Charles Bevel, Lita Gaithers, Randal Myler, Ron Taylor, and Dan Wheetman. It was originally produced at The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and later presented by the Crossroads Theatre, in association with San Diego Repertory...

. As a songwriter, his work is known for themes of social injustice and racial conflagration, as well as relationship issues and love songs.

Biography

Porter was born in Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 and raised in Bakersfield, California

Bakersfield, California

Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....

, where his mother was a minister. He attended San Diego State University

San Diego State University

San Diego State University , founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, is the largest and oldest higher education facility in the greater San Diego area , and is part of the California State University system...

 on a football scholarship until he injured a shoulder, performing in local jazz clubs, where he met saxophonist, pianist, and composer Kamau Kenyatta, who produced his first album. Kenyatta introduced him to Hubert Laws

Hubert Laws

Hubert Laws is an American flutist and saxophonist with a 40+ year career in jazz, classical, and other music genres. Alongside Herbie Mann, Laws is probably the most recognized and respected jazz flutist...

, and Porter sang a brief phrase of Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

's "Smile" in the style of Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole

Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...

, which got him a guest spot on Laws's album. He and others noticed the similarity in his voice to Cole, something that goes back to a song he wrote when he was five, "Once Upon a Time I Had a Dreamboat," which evoked a similar comment from his mother. Eloise Laws

Eloise Laws

Eloise Laws is a singer and a member of the prominent Laws family of musicians from Houston, Texas.-Biography:Lavern Eloise Laws was born November 6, 1943 in Houston, Texas as the fourth of eight children of Miola Luverta Donahue and Hubert Laws, Sr...

, Hubert's sister, happened to be visiting the studio, and helped get Porter cast in a leading role in a new musical, It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues

It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues

It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues is a musical revue written by Charles Bevel, Lita Gaithers, Randal Myler, Ron Taylor, and Dan Wheetman. It was originally produced at The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and later presented by the Crossroads Theatre, in association with San Diego Repertory...

, which premiered at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts

Denver Center for the Performing Arts

The Denver Center for the Performing Arts ' is an organization in Denver, Colorado which provides a showcase for live theatre, a nurturing ground for new plays, a preferred stop on the Broadway touring circuit, a graduate-level training school for actors, acting classes for the community and rental...

 before moving to Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 and ultimately Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, in spite of previously having appeared in only one other theatrical work, Avenue X

Avenue X

Avenue X is the fifth full-length studio album from New York punk band, The Turbo A.C.'s. It was released in June, 2005 on Bitzcore Records and subsequently in February, 2006 on Gearhead Records...

.

He currently lives in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

. He is a resident performer at Smoke Jazz and a frequent guest performer at Jazz at Lincoln Center

Jazz at Lincoln Center

Jazz at Lincoln Center is part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. JALC's performing arts complex, Frederick P. Rose Hall, is located at West 60th Street and Broadway in New York City, slightly south of the main Lincoln Center campus and directly adjacent to Columbus Circle. Frederick P....

. He has recorded with Nicola Conte

Nicola Conte

Nicola Conte is an Italian DJ, producer, guitarist, and bandleader, known initially for introducing an innovative style of acid jazz that incorporates bossa nova themes, melodies drawn from Italian film scores of the 1960s, easy listening themes, and ethnic Indian music...

. He has also appeared on Later... with Jools Holland on BBC2 and appeared at the North Sea Jazz Festival

North Sea Jazz Festival

The North Sea Jazz Festival is an annual jazz festival held each second weekend of July in the Netherlands at the Ahoy venue. It used to be in The Hague but since 2006 it has been held in Rotterdam...

 in Holland and the National Black Arts Festival

National Black Arts Festival

The National Black Arts Festival was founded in 1987 after the Fulton County Arts Council commissioned a study to explore the feasibility of creating a festival dedicated to celebrating the work of artists of African descent. The study provided compelling reasons why the Atlanta community was the...

 in Atlanta.

External links

• Official Site
• Gregory Porter at Motéma Music
  Motéma Music
  Motéma Music is an American record label focused on jazz and world music, as well as other creative projects by virtuosic musicians who also compose. It was founded by Jana Herzen in 2003, and is now based in Harlem, New York City...