2016 · Album
Take Me to the Alley
Blue Note Records · Released: May 6, 2016 · Grammy Award: Best Jazz Vocal Album, 2017
Porter's Return to the Alley
Take Me to the Alley shows Porter in full command, singing jazz standards with the weight of hard-won experience.
By the time Gregory Porter made Take Me to the Alley, he'd already built something most singers never achieve—a voice that commands attention the moment it enters a room, and the skill to know what to do with that power. This album finds him at a point in his career where he can dig into the material without proving anything to anyone. He's singing standards here, the kind of songs that have been sung a thousand times, but what matters is that Porter brings genuine weight to them. He doesn't rush, doesn't oversell. There's a confidence in these readings that comes from knowing your instrument inside and out.
The album moves through familiar terrain without feeling obligatory. Porter's voice—that deep, burnished baritone—sits perfectly in the jazz tradition he's inhabiting here, and the band behind him knows how to leave space for the singer to breathe. These aren't arrangements that show off; they're arrangements that serve the song and the vocalist. Tracks like the title piece have the feeling of a man settling into a comfortable chair with a drink, telling you something true. The pacing is deliberate, unhurried. Porter takes his time because the songs deserve it, and because rushing would waste what he's learned about singing over the years.
If you've heard Porter's voice on film soundtracks or his earlier work, this record shows you what he can do when the focus is purely on the jazz tradition itself. It's not a reinvention—he's not trying to be anyone else—but rather a full commitment to the music that clearly matters to him. This is the work of a singer who knows exactly who he is.
Who's playing
Chip Crawfordpiano
Tivon Pennicotttenor saxophone
佐藤洋祐alto saxophone
Keyon Harroldtrumpet
Ondřej Pivecorgan
Emanuel Harrolddrums
