{"id":7284,"date":"2013-11-05T19:50:54","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T00:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/?p=7284"},"modified":"2017-12-11T20:59:06","modified_gmt":"2017-12-12T01:59:06","slug":"romancing-the-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/?p=7284","title":{"rendered":"Romancing the Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gregory

Singer Gregory Porter returned to Syracuse last week.<\/p><\/div>\n

A Gregory Porter concert is a little like the Matrix: We could tell you what it’s like, but you really have to experience it for yourself.<\/p>\n

We wrote in a previous post that it’s\u00a0difficult to classify Porter, but in his vocals one can hear Nat Cole, Ray Charles, Joe Williams\u00a0and even Donny Hathaway. He effortlessly blends ballads, shout blues and the sacred sounds of the church.<\/p>\n

The superstar\u00a0 jazz singer returned to Central New York Friday for the first time since his appearance at the 2012\u00a0Syracuse Jazz Festival.\u00a0\u00a0Earlier in the day he\u00a0did a clinic for students and also talked about his life’s story.<\/p>\n

But the real treat was the show.<\/p>\n

From the time they hit the stage at about 7:30 p.m. Porter and his band (Chip Crawford, Emmanuel Harrold, Aaron James and Yosuke Sato) nearly blew the doors off Storer Auditorium.<\/p>\n

Porter kicked things off\u00a0 with the ballad Be Good,<\/em> and from the first note, a wave of goosebumps washed over the theater. He sprinkled in\u00a0Liquid Spirit <\/em>and No Love Dying\u00a0<\/em>from his new album, as well as the crowd favorite On My Way to Harlem<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For an encore they poured it on with\u00a0the bass-driven cut, 1960 What? <\/em>which \u00a0featured Aaron James slapping and literally dancing with\u00a0his upright instrument.<\/p>\n

The music created by the band\u00a0was spicy like Cajun catfish and Porter’s strong, spiritually connected vocals were smooth like banana pudding.<\/p>\n

At\u00a0the end,\u00a0most people lingered\u00a0to soak in\u00a0the experience,\u00a0and everyone left satisfied.<\/p>\n

\"WAER-FM

WAER-FM 88’s Eric Cohen and Jazz Fest Producer Frank Malfitano welcome Gregory Porter to the stage.<\/p><\/div>\n

WAER FM-88’s Program Director Eric Cohen said it best when he said that for one night, Syracuse became the center of the Jazz Universe.<\/p>\n

\"Crawford,

A great starting five: Crawford, James, Porter, Harrold and Sato<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Gregory Porter concert is a little like the Matrix: We could tell you what it’s like, but you really have to experience it for yourself. We wrote in a previous post that it’s\u00a0difficult to classify Porter, but in his vocals one can hear Nat Cole, Ray Charles, Joe Williams\u00a0and even Donny Hathaway. He effortlessly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[2524,3105,286,2105,40,3191,3192,4999,3354,1449,3353],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7284"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24249,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7284\/revisions\/24249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}