You've got soul.
and everybody should know Jon Batiste
Graduate of Julliard. Creative Director of the National Jazz Museum. Bandleader of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Score composer for Pixar’s Soul. Golden Globe, Grammy, and BAFTA Film award winner (many times over.) 2021 Album of the Year. Currently selling out Carnegie Hall as the first Black composer with an all-Black symphony pairing for his original showcase premier of American Symphony.
If you haven’t been properly introduced: this is Jon Batiste.
If you think his accolades are impressive, you should experience his music. Just try to peel your eyes away from his lightning fast fingers on the keys to watch his face, the way sounds brighten his eyes. If you can even stand to not get up to dance, look at his smile. He’s electric. Watch him move and groove. Watch him riff. He’s dazzling.
Watch him light up Tiny Desk at NPR. And also: the band of women, the craftsmanship, the pure love of music. Can’t you feel that room? Watch him improvise.
I read somewhere he loves improvisation. He said even when it looks like something he’s playing is rehearsed, he’s usually making it up. That’s extraordinary skill and talent, certifiably genius.
I first encountered Jon Batiste’s music through his wife, Suleika Jaouad, author of the bestselling memoir Between Two Kingdoms (one of my favorite books read in 2021 — YOU MUST READ IT.) Between the two of them, they’ve knocked me out of and back into myself a couple times in the last year.
His music found me at a time when I often felt horrible in my body. My GI issues were flaring up, and felt deeply out of control. My chronic plantar fasciitis bothered me constantly. I needed the support of art to get me through. That’s when his track “FREEDOM” entered my sphere.
I’d pop in headphones and dance and move to the song. I listened to it every day, like an anthem under the blue spring sky on my back patio. Then the music video for “FREEDOM” dropped in June. It was a work of art in itself. A celebration of Black culture. New Orleans flavor, front and center. His signature flair, deliciously vibrant. An explosion of expression. A proclamation of freedom. An affirmation of community. Who doesn’t need more of that?
I acknowledge there are parts of his culture and music that aren’t for me as my own as a white woman, but to simply appreciate as important. I do, with great reverence. And as I do, I connect and notice. I see how he’s transcending popular culture, transcending genre, transcending music to make it a place — a gathering place that’s for everybody.
Priya Parker wrote an excellent post about the importance of Jon’s music and his incredibly communal performances. Gather with her words for a moment:
“Years ago, [Jon Batiste] would often end his performances by walking out of the concert hall and lead his audiences in a procession through the streets of New York City (called Love Riots). During the BLM protests, he would sing and march and suffuse the protest with calling IN the world people were dreaming up. More recently, he hosted pop-up concerts [and] led processions to reclaim gathering spaces after the first major wave of Covid.
Jon Batiste comes from the tradition of music as PARTICIPATORY versus just PERFORMATIVE. His concerts have been described as revivals and collective happenings. He shows up not just as SOURCE of music but VESSEL for the larger group. He understands that he is doing this. He does it with deep intention…
The way we gather matters.”
The ways Jon Batiste gathers people kind of reminds me of church …or I could say maybe the way church should be. The way he builds participatory experiences as a leader and a peer that remind us of the power of collective wholeness. The influence of gospel and rhythm, and the way his choir and collaborators move their bodies together, like worship. The way his lyrics point to the bigger things that bind humanity like beauty and goodness, like struggle and hope.
In Soul, the songs and themes center on passion, purpose, and realizing your own worth. That you’re already enough.
I don’t know if Jon Batiste is a church guy, but he’s taken me along a few times.
I watched a video of this humble, talented man be recognized for his genius at the Grammy Awards last week: His musical genius. His Black, excellent genius. His composition genius. His genre-defying creative genius. His gathering genius. His genius that isn’t just what he’s created, but the part of him that makes it.
In his acceptance speech for Album of the Year (for We Are), he said this:
"I believe this to my core—there is no best musician, best artist, best dancer, best actor. The creative arts are subjective, and they reach people at a point in their lives when they need it most.
It's like a song or an album is made and it almost has a radar to find the person when they need it the most.
I just put my head down and I work on the craft everyday. I love music. I’ve been playing since I was a little boy. It’s more than entertainment for me—it’s a spiritual practice.”
As a creator, I am taking notes.
The artists, makers, poets, and musicians — especially the ones like Jon Batiste that can bring us together — are the ones who help us carry on through the harder parts of life. As an artist, Jon seems to embody joy and positivity. But I know real life is paradox.
Currently, his wife Suleika is healing from a bone marrow transplant to treat her second bout of leukemia. In a recent interview, Jon shared the importance of holding onto the light so shadows don’t swallow you. He wrote lullabies for her every single night in the aftermath of her transplant when she was in medical isolation and he couldn’t be by her side. Because, of course he did. Then he leapt onstage to perform “FREEDOM” live and collect FIVE Grammy Awards. I wonder how they hold these in the same palm, together. Simultaneously.
As a human, I am taking notes.
The art we needs finds us. The way we gathers matters. They way we navigate life — not in spite of ourselves or our circumstances, but because of them — matters.
At just the magical right time, art and stories radar-locate us and we form a personal relationship to them. They become the soundtrack to taking our place in the march of collective human experience.
Where we move and dance and sing and cry, cry, cry.
Where we invite people into the movement.
Where we say come join in, join us.
Where we take in love and give it away.
Shine in your moment, Jon Batiste, you absolute legend.
It’s All Right,
