Guest ArtistsGregory Porter

An artist whose music is at once timeless yet utterly of its time, Gregory Porter solidifies his standing as his generation’s most soulful jazz singer-songwriter with the May 6 release of Take Me to the Alley, the much-anticipated follow-up to his million-selling Grammy®-winning 2013 Blue Note debut Liquid Spirit. The album pre-order has now launched along with the release of two singles—“Holding On” and “Don’t Lose Your Steam”—which fans will receive instantly when pre-ordering a download of the album. The album is also available for pre-order on CD, and the singles are also available on streaming services.

“Holding On” was premiered recently on Apple Music’s Beats 1 and finds Porter presenting his decidedly different version of the Disclosure single that he was the featured vocalist on and co-wrote for their album, Caracal. “I decided to do the song the way that I would have recorded it on my record,” Mr. Porter says. “It’s a way of saying that a song is a song is a song. The lyrics and the intention of the song come through no matter what kind of bells and whistles are going on.”

The rousing, bluesy stomp “Don’t Lose Your Steam” is dedicated to Porter’s three-year- old son with encouraging lyrics about staying committed one’s goals regardless of hardship. (Mr. Porter can be seen performing “Don’t Lose Your Steam” live at Capitol Studios through streaming services.)

Liquid Spirit – which follows Porter’s critically-acclaimed and Grammy®-nominated albums Water (2010) and Be Good (2012) – was released in the fall of 2013 and quickly grew into a global phenomenon, selling a million albums worldwide and becoming the most streamed jazz album of all time with over 20 million streams. The album sold Platinum in the U.K. and Germany, and in the United States Mr. Porter made his first-ever national TV appearances on The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live while Esquire and NPR Music both declared him “America’s Next Great Jazz Singer.” Liquid Spirit also won Porter his first Grammy® Award in 2014 for Best Jazz Vocal Album while also earning him a Best Traditional R&B Performance nomination for his affecting ballad “Hey Laura.”

In the fall of 2015 Gregory Porter finally found the time to return to the studio in New York City to record Take Me to the Alley. As he’s done on his previous three albums, Mr. Porter teamed with producer Kamau Kenyatta to craft a collection of stirring originals that juxtapose the personal and political. His partnership with Kenyatta started in the mid-1990s when he was a student at San Diego State University. (Mr. Porter began his college years playing football on a full athletic scholarship before a shoulder injury diverted him into a music career). It was through Kenyatta’s mentorship that Mr. Porter’s professional musical career began.