Gregory Porter Interviewed by Anita Pollard

Thursday Jammin’ host Anita Pollard spoke to Gregory Porter and got some great insights into his newest albums, including inspiration for lyrics, and the influences on his music. We also get the latest news on his recent tour. An American performer famous for his contribution to jazz through acting, song composition and vocals, he really gets to the heart here of what it’s all about:

Gregory you’ve been described by your colleagues as “a beast”, by yourself as a “mummy’s boy”, by fans as “the cat in the cat”, and by leading music journalists as “the next great jazz vocalist of our time”. Who are you today?

(Laughs) That’s funny! Well you know I’ve been travelling like a crazy person so sometimes I feel like the next great rag doll as I go up and down in planes and travel with my suitcases. Some of these descriptions are just fantastic but all in all, in the music I’m just trying to be Gregory Porter. A young man who was raised by this preacher woman who had seven brothers and sisters around him to help him figure his way through life. I’m just me!

You’ve had a few different careers haven’t you? You were studying to be a footballer at one point.

Yes, American football. I played for some time and had some success but it’s a violent game; I injured my shoulder and wasn’t able to play anymore. All the while music was still important to me. I had quite a few years as a cook, a chef, and the music was central to me even there – I was singing all the time while I was cooking. I could go on and on, I’ve done quite a few things, but in those major things that I’ve done, music has always been central. I didn’t know that it would or even that it could be a professional career for me. That happened organically.

Tell us a little bit about your third and latest album, Liquid Spirit.

Liquid Spirit – the title track is a call to the music community to “un-reroute the river, let the dammed water be” to suggest there’s some people down the way that are thirsty for something. They’re thirsty for a music, a feeling, and an energy that may not be coming across on the radio, or that may not be easy to find if they’re looking to find it. I get messages from people after a concert, “Where have you been? Where can I find more of this kind of music?” That suggested there is a deficit in people’s ears, basically, on the musical diet that they’re getting. That sentiment is what I’m saying with the poetry and the music and the song.

Do you think that’s about a genre people are enjoying or about a spirit that you’re eliciting when you write your music?

When you say genre it may be even the blurring of those lines. I mean that to suggest that jazz or the music that I’m producing shouldn’t be marketed or given to nineteen or twenty year olds is probably wrong. To say that it’s not for sixty year old grandmothers is wrong as well. One thing that I find when I travel round to different markets, cities and countries, is sometimes how varied the ages of the people at the concerts are. It really is from seventy years old to fourteen. So the idea that people think they that know the demographic for music, that they know exactly the time that a saxophone should be played, the idea that everything is known by way of formula – is not correct. I think let the music flow, let the liquid spirit flow, and let the water go where it wants to go. Watch what happens, people will enjoy the music. That’s just my thought.

You use a lot of metaphor in your song writing, and parables;  for example brown grass, burning bridges and water under the bridge. Do you think this use of metaphor might come from your experiences with the bible?

Probably, you know my mother was a minister and I heard this type of allegory often. My level of poetry is also from trying make a familiar connection to people, and with people. One of the lyrics is “I try all day to not write songs that sound cliché when I sing songs of love to you but sometimes I always do”….  So yeah, I’m trying to make a familiar connection and then flip that connection.

What did you learn from doing this album? You pretty much have the same lineup of musicians and producers. Did you learn new things doing it the third time?

I did. As a unit you go into the rehearsal process and into the studio unsure of what the final sound will be. Because ultimately in jazz you inform your musicians and then you set them free to be themselves on the record. I liked what the guys have done with my music and basically fortifying the story that I’m trying to get across. We’ve been working together for about seven years and I’m always fascinated by the different colours of the personalities of the people on the record as they come out.

A recent NY times review described your music as “serenely un-academic”. I wonder if you face the same criticism from some jazz musicians that Miles Davis did when he was producing very commercially viable jazz?

Well, the thing is, it is academic. But that’s the trick, to give it a sound and a feeling as though you’re only going for emotion and not to flip the wig (of the listener) and turn the brain upside down. The most important for me is to strike to the heart, although we are in a genre that can believe in putting tricks and different levels of academic theatre into the music as well. In a way that has its place and value  – I enjoy that as well, but for me… in a way an artist that comes to the table often is doing so based on the environment that they feel as well. The intellect in my music comes from the emotional thought that I’m dealing with. That’s intellectual as well, to have a simple emotional conversation. Because if it’s been missing in the music for some time… Some people say “Wow, it was genius to bring that part of the music forward.” That’s not a negative thing, for somebody to say that your sole purpose in the music is not to focus on the academic or intellectual aspects of the music.

I think it’s a compliment really, particularly in the jazz world. I would hazard a guess and say that this is why you are being nominated for Grammy awards: best jazz vocal and best performance in R&B. You are also receiving accolades from soul fans. Can you describe your songwriting process?

Generally it starts with a melody, sometimes that comes to me like a statement that’s coming from somewhere.  Sometimes the melody, rhythm, bass line, will come to me that way. And of course lyrics.  And then later on, once I’ve recorded that in some fashion, by writing it down or recording it on some voice recorder or whatever, I’ll fill in the chords and exact how every bit of it wants to sound. They come to me as messages first. Generally I write when I’m in movement. I was on the train when Liquid Spirit came and it came very quickly, it came really as a fully formed song with the poetry just the way that it is. “Un re-route the river, let the dammed water be/ there’s some people down the way that’s thirsty/let the liquid spirit free”. Just as fast as I could write it, however that came out. So the song kind of felt divinely inspired. In a way it’s also a feeling that’s welling up inside of you for some time so the subconscious mind is probably writing the song. I think I also write without regard to genre, I’m not thinking about “OK this has to be in 4:4 swing time”; I’m just writing a song. I am a jazz singer but I don’t have to prove it with every note that I sing. Because the elements of jazz are also blues, gospel, soul, R&B. These are all elements that exist and that take their foundation in blues and gospel so I don’t feel the necessity to plant a stake in jazz every time that I open my mouth, because I know who I am, I know what I am, I know my influences. And I just sing them. And I have less regard if the cymbal on the drums is (emulates syncopated jazz feel) every time. I love that sound, but it doesn’t have to be there for every note that I sing.

When do you feel that a tune is ready to take to your arranger ?

The type of the arranging we do is really sometimes on the spot. I’ll have an idea and sometimes he may want to add just another voice to the harmonies that I’ve thought of, maybe just before the recording process he may have an idea to fortify the sound. It really all happens emanating from me, and then at the very end before the recording we’ll say “How do you think that would sound? Oh that’d be cool, let’s add some more horns” or whatever. Or eliminate some things. Sometimes arranging is eliminating things as well. Kamau Kenyatta is the titled arranger but it happens from myself and sometimes with the entirety of the group. You know sometimes in a way I’m searching for simplicity, I’m looking for straightforwardness of message so the human can come through in the music. Sometimes the song is already arranged.

What’s next for Gregory Porter?

I am travelling quite a bit and there are still places that I haven’t been so I’m trying to get the word out about the music. I’m still writing and I want to continue to expand. I’ve been working with some orchestras and a lot of guest work, and I want to continue to do that. I want to continue to work with different artists, I had an offer recently to work with Herbie Hancock on stage and I’m excited about that. And the interesting thing is the people who tweet or have a conversation about my music. Prince mentioned me the other day, and Erykah Badu, and Jill Scott. They mention that they have my records. From a master piano player like Harold Mabern who’s played with Miles Davis and knew Coltrane and has played with him; if he can respect the music as well as a young hip hop head, as well as Erykah Badu and Prince, then I feel like I’m probably doing something OK in the music that has a larger appeal and I appreciate that. It’s not the goal, but it’s something that happens, you know. I’m really trying to be organic with the music and just do what I feel and let it come out.

On that note, who are you listening to?

I am very attracted to the imperfect, regular voice. I love the jazz singers of the last generation. Abbey Lincoln before she passed away. Her ageing voice – not cracking but clearly matured and seasoned – that’s attractive to me. It’s like Jonny Cash with his last record before he died; that record was just so raw and so human. I’m searching for human sounds. So I have many wide influences, but the unfortunate thing is that many of my influences or the thing that I’m listening to now are from people who have passed away. Donny Hathaway and Nat King Cole, Leon Thomas and people like that. I listen to Jose James and Robert Glasper – we see each other quite often on the road at different festivals and I find myself feeding from their music as well, because they also bring in so many different influences and different guest artists and it’s always entertaining to listen to their music.

You’re on the road today– in France.

I’m in the south of France now and I just had five concerts in Holland. Which in a way was probably an interesting warm up for me later in the month when I’m playing at the Royal Albert Hall. I was playing in these places in Holland where everyplace there were about two thousand people, and so you have to learn how to work with that type of an audience in order to be ready for that (big) stage. You don’t sing any louder, you just kind of stretch your arms wider in order to encompass everybody.

The first places I started to tour internationally were in Russia, more than seven years ago. And when I came, I never was playing in clubs. As soon as I got there I was playing in these huge concert halls, over a thousand people, fifteen hundred people every time. There was no Gregory on stage in this little club, it was always a huge concert hall. So after several years of that before I got to the rest of Europe and the bigger halls in the United States, Russia was my training ground.

How many people will be watching you at the Royal Albert Hall in London at the end of October?

I think it’s over three thousand, but bring it on – it’s exciting!

This interview was from Friday 18th October 2013.