‘Bublé, down!‘ Gregory Porter shoos his dog off his sofa as he picks up my call. With an eight hour time difference between us, Mr Porter – based in Bakersfield, California – is just sipping his morning coffee as we chat.

His most recent release, the terrific All Rise, garnered Porter a Grammy nomination for ‘Best R&B Album’. He is also working on the second season of his podcast The Hang, running through Christmas to February 2021, with a range of guests including John Legend, Gary Barlow, and Paloma Faith (who he has just recorded a Christmas single with – listen to ‘Christmas Prayer‘).

The calm, warm presence which Porter exudes on stage matches his persona on our call. We chatted about the pandemic, the artistic direction of All Rise, and Porter’s wider thoughts on the soul and jazz scene. Read below.

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Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me Mr Porter, my name is Fraser, I run The House that Soul Built. We’re a London-based publication. We’re obsessed with everything soul music but also jazz and blues, so it’s fantastic to speak to you.

Pleasure, I’m glad to be with you.

My first question to you Mr Porter is, first of all, how are you? How have you been coping in this pandemic?

You know, sometimes you write unconscious of where you are at the moment, and I realise that life is very balanced and this pandemic break has been very balanced in terms of both joy and pain: The joy of having time, watching the seasons change from spring to summer to fall, that’s been amazing. But, you know, watching the lives come and go out of my life and I’ve seen some really close friends get very, very sick and feel not at 100%, and my brother dying from the pandemic. So, it’s been an extremely intense time and I’m just trying to maintain my breath both physically and metaphorically in a way. But, when I say extreme, I mean extreme joy as well. This Grammy nomination, this time spent with my son. I remember sometimes being on the road craving being able to sit next to my fire and read a book and I can do that now.

Because I note that in your song Concorde, which is the first song off your most recent album, you sing about exactly that. You’re “60,000 feet up in the air” but you want to be at home with your family. Was that song written before the pandemic?

It was written before the pandemic, yes, and I was actually on a flight to London. The crazy thing is I love travelling. I love being around people that are not from my circle. But, you know, the price of journey is that you’re leaving something behind and unless you can take your fireplace and your dog and your house and your favourite books with you everywhere you go, which some artists can do but I can’t, it’s challenging. I wrote ‘Concorde’ at 3 o’clock in the morning on a plane and that’s when it’s most organic. I’m writing it not really knowing what feelings are really there. I’m moving twice the speed of sound, I’m zigzagging the globe but the most amazing trip is the one that you’re making to get home. So, that’s what I’m expressing – a feeling that I have in my heart from a subconscious emotion, a subconscious thought.

We were hoping to see you in the UK this year, are you itching to go back on tour? Have you had enough of the time back home? Are you ready to back on the road again and perform to audiences?

Yes. I’m old school and in a way it feels a bit odd to receive accolades for something I haven’t even properly handed to the people. I feel like live performances are part of a record in a way. Part of that musical experience is handed live as well. So, yes. I do miss the road, the travel, the food, the people, the experience of different stages. I miss that a lot.

I want to ask you a couple of questions about your latest album. We covered it on our website and it’s fantastic, and congratulations on your Grammy nomination, it’s incredibly well deserved.

Thank you.

What stood out to me as a fan of yours is that this album felt distinctly more soulful. In fact, it seemed like it was drawing on your church background more so than some of the previous albums. Was that a sound that you intentionally went for?

Yes, organically, but not intentionally. That sounds strange but this is an organic happening and it felt good and it felt right. There were other songs but the songs that made the record were the songs that were bursting out of me and, so, you would be right in that. The comfort at embracing my influence, my church influence is maybe more evident in this record. It’s there in my other records as well but I think more so on this record. It’s not a sea change, it’s an addition to the story. I think I am a jazz singer, I am a soul singer, I am a gospel singer. I think these titles are not inauthentically said about me, I think they go together. And for me personally, even the story of Nat King Cole, that’s still a part of me and part of the soul story, part of the gospel story, part of the Black American story, part of my household story. Even though the records are for the people, for the fans, for the audience, it’s coming out of me and it’s for me first. And so, yes, you’re correct in picking that up but it happens organically.

And why do think you just happened to find yourself in that direction, was there anything that perhaps inspired that?

This is going to sound strange. I’m not saying I’m psychic but I had a conversation with some people and I said, “I feel some impending loss.” I didn’t know what that meant and the very first song that I started on with this record was a song about death, “Remember me when I’m gone”, I didn’t finish the song for some strange reason. I was talking to my piano player, I was like, “Man why is that coming out of me right now: remember me when I’m gone?” And I was writing a song for my brother as he was in the land of the living.

This is going to sound unbelievable but hip hop artists – Chance the Rapper, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar – many times in some of their raps, in some of their records, they’ll mention a deep respect for their spirituality. And sometimes a jazz artist, or an artist of another genre, can feel the timidity towards singing about their spirituality or their religion and their god. But I was realising how overt [hip hop artists] are when they speak of God, Jesus or religion. They may be cussing or talking about, you know, a big ass in the same song and so, I said to myself, I think it would be okay if I expressed myself and explored this line that is the sacred and profane. I’m dealing with heaven and earth a lot in this record, it comes up almost on every song.

Really fascinating. Thinking about the soul and jazz landscape more broadly, obviously the arts have been badly hit by this current pandemic, how optimistic do you feel about the soul and jazz scene in general?

Well, I think that just as in the stock market, in business, in love, there will be pent up energy. But also from this will be the desire for real feelings. So, I think the popularity, the energy of soul music is going to become even more important. Because when you go through something difficult like this, you want to go to something that’s more organic and I think that’s what will happen. I think people have dug into their record collection in a way – “how do we medicate ourselves from this?” And what I’ve done is gone to those time-tested wise voices that are Aretha Franklin, that are Bill Withers, there’s Marvin Gaye, you know, there’s even soul jazz singers like, Leon Thomas or just those soulful, grounded, rooted, gospel inspired artists that are telling the truth, and you tend to want to go there in times of trouble.

Who in the soul and jazz scene currently is really exciting you and giving you that hope and that optimism for the future of the genre?

Wow, I think of voices that are mindblowingly extraordinary. Ledisi, her voice is just so extraordinary and I think she doesn’t have maybe as much energy as she should have in the UK but her voice is exceptional. Lalah Hathaway never, never fails to disappoint. The thing is, there’s a lot of great voices. To use a mechanical analogy: if you have an engine, a powerful engine that is a thousand horsepower, but you don’t have the transmission in order to get that power to the ground and get that power to the wheels, the whole package doesn’t come together. With two extraordinary voices like that, they’ve managed to have the transmission which is the songs. So, you have this amazing instrument and the songs that come together, and that makes for a complete artist, the ability to get that power to the ground.

You have this podcast with really exciting guests coming up, what can we expect from the future episodes?

I think just more of the same, a real conversation, maybe a question that some of these artists may not get in a traditional, short from interview. I am careful but I am probing places maybe that they hadn’t thought about talking. You know, what did your mama, your grandma, what did they give to you, how does it inspire you? I’m also trying to draw commonalities with even myself. Even if somebody is not of the same genre – what are the commonalities, the human commonalities that move us all? There’s often the artist, or the person being interviewed, who is the person that’s been put upon a pedestal but what I’m trying to do is lower that pedestal, I’m trying to put us all on the same footing, the same grounding and let’s just talk as human beings.

That sounds fascinating and I can’t wait to listen. Thank you so much for your time Mr Porter.

All Rise, the latest album from Gregory Porter, is available now on all streaming platforms

Photography Credit: Amy Sioux