GREGORY PORTER TICKETS GREGORY PORTER LA CIGALE GREGORY PORTER

Gregory Porter is a Grammy Award-nominated jazz vocalist for his 2010 release, Water, on Motéma Music. He was also a member of the original Broadway cast of It Ain´t Nothin´ But the Blues. As a songwriter, his work is known for themes of social injustice and racial conflagration, as well as relationship issues and love songs.

Porter was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in Bakersfield, California, where his mother was a minister. He attended San Diego State University 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, and Porter sang a brief phrase of Charlie Chaplin´s ”Smile” in the style of Nat King Cole, 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, 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, which premiered at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts before moving to Off-Broadway and ultimately Broadway, in spite of previously having appeared in only one other theatrical work, Avenue X.

He currently lives in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. He is a resident performer at Smoke Jazz and a frequent guest performer at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has recorded with Nicola Conte. He has also appeared on Later... with Jools Holland on BBC2 and appeared at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland and the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta.