Grammy Award-winner Gregory Porter demonstrated why NPR called him “the next great male jazz singer” last night in the Belushi Performance Hall at The McAninch Arts Center.
Gregory Porter
The rescheduled show was packed and buzzing with excitement. This show was originally a Valentine’s Day treat for some, but now they were just excited to see the rising star live before he took off for the stratosphere.
“I have everything he’s done,” several people told me. For many of the couples in attendance, one of Porter’s songs is their song.
Executive Director Diana Martinez apologized for the rescheduling and explained the radio station WDCB 90.9 FM helped bring Porter in. She told them she wanted to bring jazz to the center and was looking for recommendations. “This is the guy,” they told her. “He’s top of our list.”
Photo credit: Nina Simone Bentley Source: Wikipedia
The audience cheered with in notes of the first song starting. While he has sung all his life, Porter went to school on a football scholarship until an injury rerouted his career. Football’s loss is the music world’s gain. He’s a tall man. I wouldn’t want to be opposite him on the football field. Onstage his presence is commanding yet approachable. His voice is elegant, every note delivered with purpose and precision. I felt he was a Fred Astaire versus a Gene Kelly of a singer, beautiful and graceful, but not displaying vocal gymnastics. As soon as I wrote that note, he did a vocal tumbling run and stuck the landing. He did a couple of vocal curly cues on the ends of songs, but they were decorative. His performance did not rely on them.
Porter didn’t do much talking between songs so the evening flew by. When he did it was playful.
“If they cheer louder for you than for me,” he teased the saxophonist. “You’re fired. That’s how it is.”
His enthusiasm was infectious. I also like performers I can believe. He performed a song for his “soldiers of love” called “No Love Dying.” When he said those words, I believed him. Love was not dying here for him or for me because he said so.
Source: Wikipedia
On “Liquid Spirit” he asked us to clap with him. We did (the man said, “Clap”). It was this strong, crisp singular clap from the ground floor to the back of the balcony. He opened his song called “Mother’s Song” saying his mother would make him get up in church ever since he was five years old and sing. I’d like to see him in church, to see that voice really open up and boom with those acoustics.
He respected the other musicians onstage. When it was their time to shine and showcase their skills, he simply stepped back and kept time with his foot, enjoying watching the players perform with us. He didn’t draw attention to himself.
Gregory Porter live is a great introduction to decadent, luxurious jazz. You could feel the love in the theatre because it was a community united by their love for the singer and a concern for music today, embodied in his song "Musical Genocide" as he sang, “I do not agree. This is not for me.” It was Sunday and the show was church for some as he said later in that song, “the music, the people, they are one and the same.”
No comments:
Post a Comment