Gregory Porter

“'Take Me to the Alley' is about trying to uplift the lives of people who have been afflicted, maybe the homeless or somebody with an illness, or maybe they're refugees.”

“The protest songs of the 1960s and 70s managed to blend political and societal views with music from the heart.”

“Because I am away so much, I try to establish home in people, rather than places. For example, wherever I get together with my brother the place we're in becomes home.”

“You'd think we'd be exhausted by that rhetoric but you're still able to move people with fear and fright and lies that somebody's going to take your place, that in order for someone to rise, you have to fall.”

“I can sing the blues and I have sung the blues. I feel it internally when I'm singing.”

“I love wandering around the vintage shops.”

“I think myself, Jose James, and Robert Glasper are expanding the language - really reminding people that the umbrella of jazz is large and all-encompassing.”

“My overwhelming memory of my childhood is the constant busyness in the house. I am seventh out of eight kids - five boys and three girls - plus my mom, Ruth.”

“I was in rehab for nine months, and I needed some solace and distraction. I was in town one day and I sort of stumbled into a jazz jam session, and kept going back.”

“What makes jazz different is that you can't predict it, it's all about freedom. Just when you think you know what you're going to hear there'll be a left turn, a jazz musician will change it up.”

“How can you sing a line like, 'I've fallen out of love' when you're 18? You need to experience something of life before you can sing it.”

“I've always thought that a Saturday morning at home should be education time. I mean fun education, for example learning to cook a dish or reading about something new. So I put on documentaries, get a bunch of magazines and newspapers and use the morning to make myself better.”

“There were some things in my childhood I thought we'd put to sleep. The idea of one race's supremacy over another. I thought the issue of colour would be put to sleep by the time I had a son. And that's maybe why I had a kid so late.”

“And I've made it a choice on my records that sometimes I leave the breath or the trailing note that sometimes falls into a flat or a sharp.”

“I'm very thankful to San Diego for the musical opportunities it gave me.”

“What a Wonderful World' is a love song to nobody and everybody. I'm thinking about songs like that in my writing with 'Take Me to the Alley.'”

“There's a lot of female singers and I don't want to dismiss them, but the male - and I have to be careful - the black male voice in jazz, whatever you say, is an important voice, because there's a tradition of the music that should be touched on, there's a sound that should be touched on.”

“But sometimes that title 'jazz' can vex people who think they know exactly what jazz always is and will be.”

“I'm happiest in nature, in trees, rivers, streams, and I'm happiest around my kid - you know that's the funny thing, he is not always in the best of moods, but I am always happiest around him and in nature. Around my family is where I am happiest.”

“Being a singer, it's feast or famine. You have to hit it when it's hot.”