Grammy-winning jazz singer Gregory Porter had a to-do list before hitting the road: Paint the fence and chop down some trees.
"The way I stay grounded is by cleaning out my gutters and reorganizing the garage, changing diapers," he said recently from Bakersfield, California, a day before his tour started. "I'm just a regular dude."
There were other issues to deal with, including his organist missing the first two nights of the tour because of COVID symptoms. The singer takes COVID precautions seriously, especially after one of his brothers died of the coronavirus in 2020.
"If science and cities tell us we have to shutter again, I'm OK with that," he said. "I'm all for keeping people safe."
Porter played at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Sunday, and is cognizant of the racial reckoning in the Twin Cities with the deaths of George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Winston Smith and Amir Locke at the hands of police.
"I'm conscious of current and past trauma in areas I've been to," he explained. "This is entertainment but it's much more than just entertainment; there's a deeper thing that happens."
Porter recalled a 2015 concert in Israel where he was confronted by a boycott over alleged Israeli human rights violations, which he wasn't aware of when he signed the contract.
"There was so much pressure and political energy that I had to speak with my mother in the sky before I approached the stage," said Porter, who began singing at a Bakersfield church where his late mother was a minister. "So I talked about brotherhood, and sang songs about offending the least one and looking out for your brother as a point of political differences."
Porter, 49, is touring behind "Still Rising — The Collection," last fall's retrospective of 34 songs that connects the dots in a stellar career that has seen him collaborate with everyone from opera diva Renee Fleming and pop experimentalist Moby to the late crooner Nat King Cole and early rocker Buddy Holly (via technology). Many of those duets are on the double album.
"The record is a good example of respecting music by not respecting genre," said Porter, who has won a pair of Grammys for jazz vocal albums.
"I approach things like a jazz singer. I feel like a jazz singer in my body and in my voice, but sometimes because it's jazz, the gospel, the blues, the soul, that comes out as well. Music associated with Black American music. They are cousins; one has been built off another, one has influenced another. I don't feel a necessity to separate them."
"All Rise," his 2020 album, is easily the most gospel-infused of his 12-year recording career. The singer said that direction was organic, reaching back to the first music he sang as a child.
The video for the single "Revival," from "All Rise," alludes to Freddie Gray, who died in the custody of Baltimore police in 2015, but Porter feels the song has a broader sweep.
"It does apply to the cloud and darkness that can be put upon you by racism and the many difficulties we have in our society [but] it's more than that. It's also the internal self-doubt. It pertains to all people."
Jazz as protest music
Porter has more obvious protest songs in his repertoire, including "1960 What?" and "Mister Holland," about how he was treated rudely by the father of a white girl he hoped to date in high school.
"Yes, protest music is an essential part of the jazz expression," he said. "To give a full picture of singing a song about optimism, you have to talk about where you're coming from. There's a reason you're crossing the River Jordan, because on this side you're catching hell."
Overt racism was part of Porter's childhood in Bakersfield. There were only two Black families in his neighborhood. A 30-foot cross was burned in their yard. One of his brothers was shot while walking home from work. Bottles filled with urine were tossed through their windows.
One of seven kids whose father abandoned them when Gregory was a toddler, Porter still managed to find his way. He won a talent contest in high school by singing a gospel tune after a well-received band rocked out and then flipped off the audience. Those musicians went on to eventual fame as the metal band Korn. (Lead singer Jonathan Davis recently friended Porter on Facebook.)
Porter headed to San Diego State University on a football scholarship. Knowing that the lineman could sing, teammates Marshall Faulk and Darnay Scott (both future NFLers) asked him to perform a song at practice one day.
"All day long in the locker room, these guys were listening to hip-hop, R&B and soul music, and on the football field I sang [the jazz standard] 'Moody's Mood for Love.' They had this perplexed look on their faces."
A shoulder injury halted his football career, so Porter focused on getting a degree in urban planning. Meanwhile, his dad, whom he barely knew, died when Porter was 20, and his mother passed the next year of cancer.
"My mother was on her deathbed. I was telling her I was going to finish my degree and wear brown shoes and have two kids and everything's going to be normal," he recalled.
She advised him otherwise.
"With her last breath, she was encouraging me to pursue music. It gave me kind of license to pursue it even if it wasn't bringing me immediate success."
As for his dad, "he gave me no time, no counseling, no money, nothing. But I learned at my father's funeral that he was a great singer. He gave me something. My voice. I'll take that."
Porter has a scrumptious baritone that evokes Lou Rawls, with hints of Nat King Cole, Joe Williams, Donny Hathaway and Bill Withers.
That versatility has led to invitations to sing on records with world-class cellist Yo-Yo Ma and electronic dance duo Disclosure, among others.
While his ingredients may vary from song to song, there is one constant for Porter: his Kangol Summer Spitfire hat.
He has 30 or 40 at home, but saves the black ones for the stage. "Some are for working in the yard," he noted.
Like he said, a regular dude.
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