Vocalist Gregory Porter to Perform at Holland Center in February

By: Dec. 30, 2015
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He's been named "the next great male jazz singer" by NPR and your chance to see why is coming up: Omaha Performing Arts presents Gregory Porter on Thursday, February 4, 2016 at 7:30 PM in Kiewit Hall at the Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 Douglas St. This performance is part of the 2015/16 Jazz Series sponsored by First National Bank. Special thanks to hospitality sponsor Hotel Deco.

Tickets start at $20 through Ticket Omaha* at 402.345.0606, TicketOmaha.com or the Ticket Omaha office inside the Holland Performing Arts Center at 13th and Douglas streets.

Porter comes to Omaha as a rising star in jazz. In 2014, Porter's third album, "Liquid Spirit," won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. That same year, Porter took home the honor for Jazz FM's International Jazz Artist Of The Year (which he won again this year). The big-voiced, big-hearted man is as adept at covers of "The 'In' Crowd and "I Fall In Love Too Easily" as he is at singing his own compositions.

The charismatic Californian breathes excitement, passion and honesty into the musical genres he has loved from boyhood - jazz, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues. His first musical love was his mother's Nat King Cole records, and he grew up trying to imitate and sing like Cole. Porter would sing music of a bygone era with older church members that his mother would associate with. "That still informs my music," said Porter. His influences are evident in the music he makes today... and he's the first to admit that it also means it can be confusing to purists. "I'm fully aware that everything I do doesn't adequately please jazz traditionalists." But he likes it that way - he appeals to jazz crowds and the younger fans of genre-hopping DJs.

"I laugh at the mix of people who show up at shows. I realize I have to give them all something - and something for all of them exists in me," said Porter. "There are songs that a 68-year-old grandma likes. And there are hard-hitting, more bass- and funk-infused things. That's part of my vocabulary as well. And I don't do them as a separate part of the show - they co-mingle and co-exist. Which is something I've done with everything - racially, politically. I'm trying to find that happy medium."



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