Gregory Porter Quotes

One doesn't have to scat to be a jazz singer.

Jazz was more of a tool for me to use to enhance my musicality.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

You have to go out and learn jazz by playing.

I'm not a jazz singer.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

The most common misconception about me is that I'm basically a jazz singer.

I don't know any jazz stuff. I don't know how to jam in that way. So jamming, for me, is writing a tune.

That's the thing: There are so many art songs in jazz. It's a much more rich experience for the singer than people think.

I studied and sang lot of jazz when I was growing up. I think that plays a little bit into some of the things I do vocally, notes that I pick in chords.

My playing started to develop through the Miles Davis stuff I was listening to.

One thing about playing the real jazz is that you can't count it.

I put out a recording of me singing mostly jazz because I wanted people to know I'm coming from a jazz background.

So our ears got used to listening to jazz in the place that it was that the bass player could not play. No one really realized it and really addressed it until the bass players who could play their instrument came along and started doing something with it.

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

The first jazz pianist I heard was Thelonious Monk. My father was listening to an album of his called 'Monk's Dream' almost every day from the time I was born.

As far as other instrumentalists, I used to love mellow sax players like Paul Desmond. I love piano.

I think that's what I love about jazz is that you can do what you want, and you're allowed to mess up.

Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the piano as his canvas.

I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.

I wanted to make a jazz record. I didn't want it to be a standards record.

They always want to sell me as a hard bopper.

If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.

As a matter of fact, we put it down because we wanted to be jazz pickers.

In some ways, jazz is the most precise of art forms and the loosest in the sense that it's all about improvisation, but the musicianship required is kind of insane. To actually play with real jazz musicians is a different level of musicianship that almost has no equal in any other form of music in the world.