Quotes from Gregory Porter

Music that speaks of politics is less listened to than the music of partying, but it's still there.

San Diego is where I really started to get my legs, musically.

Sometimes I'll be in circles, and I'll say I'm a jazz singer, and they have no idea what that means.

I was 5 years old when I first broke into my mother's records and played Nat King Cole, and sat alongside the stereo and listened to Nat's music.

Nat King Cole's lyrics were speaking to me, almost like fatherly advice, when I was listening to him alongside the console stereo player. So that music and that influence comes out of me.

I consider myself a jazz singer. I think I stick to the roots of improvisation, singing in front of the beat, behind the beat, playing with notes and harmonies.

'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.

I heard Smokey Robinson was singing one of my songs on the radio the other day. Being in the presence of Mavis Staples, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott - Stevie Wonder joined me on stage recently. That blows me away.

I think sometimes you can be around somebody and take in certain energy and read certain things and you don't know why your neck is stiff. But if you can recognise the negativity, once you identify it and you know what you are dealing with you can make a point to counteract it with a different energy.

A professional music career goes in starts and stops. Around 2000 I was doing a Broadway show and that was some real good energy.

If I can hear the music then no, I don't hit a wrong note. But if I can't hear the music because the audience is screaming or the sound system is bad, then I'm subject to stray.

I'm really just a singer that's trying to make some music that strikes to the heart.

You could spend your time with your nose buried in a guidebook, but Amsterdam really is best explored on foot, so you can stumble upon the city's hidden gems. The architecture and the beauty of some of the buildings is also wonderful.

The songs I write and the way I see the world have been affected a certain amount since I became a father.

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.'

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

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

I'm always lobbying for the irrepressible strength of love.