His generation’s most soulful jazz artist, two-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer-songwriter Gregory Porter takes the stage with his bone-deep baritone voice, warm sound, and stirring mix of jazz, soul, blues, and gospel music.
One of eight siblings raised by a minister mother in a poor part of Bakersfield, California, young Gregory found his voice both by singing in church and by studying her Nat King Cole records at home. Though Cole's talent, wisdom, and poise made him something of a surrogate father to a musically gifted boy who lived in his own head, it was a football scholarship that eventually carried Porter from California's Central Valley to San Diego State University. An injury derailed his athletic career, but while singing in jazz clubs in San Diego, he found a mentor in producer Kamau Kenyatta, who brought him into a Hubert Laws session and has worked with Porter ever since (in fact, he co-produced All Rise's L.A. sessions).
After college, Porter moved to New York to work the kitchen in his brother's Bed-Stuy cafe by day, and jazz clubs by night. His career began to ascend with the release of his first two albums—Water (2010) and Be Good (2012)—both of which received Grammy nominations. In 2013, he released his breakout Blue Note debut Liquid Spirit which grew into a global phenomenon, selling more than a million albums and earning Porter his first Grammy Award.
His 2016 follow-up Take Me To The Alley won Porter his second Grammy Award and firmly established him as his generation’s most soulful jazz artist. In 2017, Porter released the heartfelt tribute album Nat King Cole & Me, and in 2020 returned to his original songwriting on the uplifting All Rise, both of which received Grammy nominations. His 2021 release Still Rising collected new songs, covers, duets, and a selection of his most-loved hits. In 2023, Porter released his first-ever holiday album Christmas Wish. Porter has hosted the podcast The Hang, a conversation series featuring his famous friends, as well as his own cooking show The PorterHouse, in which the singer shared recipes inspired by his local community, experiences from touring the globe, and family cooking traditions.
All Rise, his sixth studio album, marks a return to Porter's beloved original songwriting—heart-on-sleeve lyrics imbued with everyday philosophy and real-life detail, set to a stirring mix of jazz, soul, blues, and gospel. Produced by Troy Miller (Laura Mvula, Jamie Cullum, Emili Sandé), the set also represents the evolution of Porter's art to something even more emphatic, emotive, intimate, and universal too. After 2017's Nat King Cole & Me, Porter knew two things: one, he'd bring in an orchestra for his next LP (check), and two, music is medicine. In the spirit of that latter revelation, All Rise brims with songs about irrepressible love, plus a little protest, because the road to healing is bumpy.
"Yes, you could say that I went big," says Porter about his latest, which combines the talents of his longtime loyal bandmates, a handpicked horn section, a 10-member choir, and the London Symphony Orchestra Strings. "But, quite frankly, the way I write in my head, it all happens with just voice and piano first, and it's built up from there. It feels good to get back to the rhythms and the styles and the feelings and the way that I like to lay down my own music from start to finish."
And that's the thing about love that All Rise keeps circling. Even when it's painful, confusing, out of reach, or under attack, love is ultimately curative. Hit play on the gorgeous torch song If Love Is Overrated and tell us you don't identify with Porter as he abandons logic for a mere chance at seeing love's promise bloom. Or drop the needle on Revival and just try to pretend you aren't lifted by the spirit no matter your personal faith or affiliation. Once again, Porter cuts through the noise of genres and the mess of life to reach us all where we live: the heart.