AMERICAN jazz and soul singer Gregory Porter will make his York Barbican debut on October 28.

Born in Los Angeles, raised on Nat King Cole records in Bakersfield and now living in Brooklyn, Porter first came to the fore in in the Tony and Drama Desk Award-nominated Broadway hit, It Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues and his weekly stints at the Harlem club, St Nick’s Pub. He released his debut album, Water, in 2010; a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal ensued.

His follow-up, 2012's Be Good, earned Porter a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional R&B Performance and the year ended on a high with Be Good being named iTunes' Jazz Album of the Year and Soul Tracks’ Album of the Year. Last year, Blue Note Records issued his third studio set, Liquid Water.

Porter's songwriting seeks to "create a sincere message about my feelings on love, culture, family and our human joys and pain", and in his poetic imagery he considers himself to be more a painter than a photographer.

“My songs may start from a place of personal experience, but I try not to impose any particular perspective on the music. I want listeners to be affected each in his or her own way, and moved as much by what can be read in between the lines as what the lyrics say.”

Porter may have grown up in California and settled in Brooklyn, but he is drawn to the music of another New York community, "I feel that the spirit of the artists that came out of Harlem – from Duke Ellington to Langston Hughes – has so influenced my work that Harlem is as much a part of me as if I had lived there,” he says.

Come this autumn, he will leave behind New York for a night in York; tickets for his 7.30pm show are on sale at £30 to £35 on 0844 854 2757 or at yorkbarbican.co.uk