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- [00:01]
John Batiste
Oh my goodness, it's the best rib. Beep beep beep baby lip baby. Beep beep beep beep beep boop. You know it's a blues. Feels great to hear that song every time. It takes me right back.
- [00:17]
Debbie Millman
From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are and what they're thinking about and what on this episode, John Baptiste talks about why he works so hard.
- [00:38]
John Batiste
I can't put half of myself in anything that I'm doing. No matter how big or small. I have to give it everything. That's just how I'm wired.
- [00:53]
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- [01:53]
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- [02:22]
John Batiste
By Madison H. You know, I thought.
- [02:24]
Josie Santee
It was a little ridiculous to get pet insurance, but I really didn't want to not take my little kitten to the vet because of money. In the last eight months I've taken him in six times because of ear infections and saved literally hundreds of dollars. He may even need to get surgery. And I couldn't consider it without Lemonade's help. I recommend Lemonade to all my friends constantly. And now I'm recommending it to you.
- [02:46]
John Batiste
Check it out@lemonade.com pet.
- [02:53]
Debbie Millman
Maybe you know him as the former bandleader on the Late show with Stephen Colbert. Maybe you know him from his performances with Alicia keys, Stevie Wonder, A$AP Rocky, Madonna, or Joni Mitchell. Or maybe you know about his seven Grammy Awards or his Oscar winning musical score for the animated Pixar film Soul. Or maybe you saw the beautiful documentary American Symphony with his wife Zuleika Giwad. Or have listened to his latest album Beethoven Blues, a pioneering and playful collaboration with the works of the great Lukewood Van. In any case, somehow, somewhere, you know the music of John Batisc. He's a musical phenomenon who exists in many of the most joyful corners of our culture. He joins me today to talk about his life and his extraordinary world. Jon Batiste, welcome to Design Matters.
- [03:54]
John Batiste
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, Hello.
- [03:58]
Debbie Millman
John, I want to start our conversation today with a bold claim you made several years ago. You stated that Final Fantasy VII is the greatest video game ever made. Do you still feel that way? And if so, why?
- [04:15]
John Batiste
Final Fantasy VII is the greatest game ever made or in contention for it? Because the game came out at a time when gaming culture was in need of something new. It was desiring something cinematic, something that was world building, something that took RPGs, role player games in a new direction. This delivered on all that. It came at a time when the graphics in video games were advancing so you could create this feeling with the visuals that felt akin to watching a film, at least for us at the time. Now when I look back at it, it's, it feels like it's old fashioned, but at the time it was the most cinematic and synthesized version of the thing everybody felt we wanted in the score. Nobu Uematsu, the composer, he wrote a score that is such a poignant and well constructed musical backdrop that it becomes a character. It's a score that is an embodiment of the story in so many ways from so many perspectives that you can listen to it apart from the game and feel like you're playing the game or you're reading. It's as if you're reading a novel that is the same narrative of the game. It's that kind of score that's just. It really is so beautiful.
- [05:50]
Debbie Millman
I understand that you learned how to play piano from learning to play the theme music from, from some of Your favorite video games. And in fact, you played so much NBA 2K that you've stated that you're as good at playing that game as you are on the piano.
- [06:06]
John Batiste
Yes. Yes, indeed. I think that gaming gets a bad rap.
- [06:12]
Debbie Millman
Why? Why do you think so?
- [06:13]
John Batiste
Well, you know, it's just one of those things that a lot of parents and kids disagree about. You know, I had. I had a lot of friends who. They would say, man, I play the game and my parents hate it because I'm not outside or I'm not doing homework. And I agree, you know, you got to do homework and got to get outside and touch grass. But also, there's a thing that happens with, at least for me, my imagination and my thought about how to approach reality. As a kid who was very quiet, very introverted, didn't have a lot of feeling of being in control of the world around me, but had a very rich inner life. And to have something where I could construct worlds and build characters and create a sense of strategy on how to approach actual life, actual living, it was almost like a. A guidebook, an avatar for building the Jon Batiste that you see today.
- [07:26]
Debbie Millman
John, you grew up in a legendary New Orleans musical family. Your father is a bassist who performed with Jackie Wilson and Isaac Hayes. He co founded the Batiste Brothers Band, which was comprised of him and his seven brothers. It was not unusual for 30 of your relatives to play together at once on stage. Was there ever a moment when you thought, I love music, but I want to do something completely different?
- [07:54]
John Batiste
You know, there were seven sons, and the majority of my uncles played music and they would play around city. And when I was growing up, they were pretty much in the retirement phase of the band. They didn't tour as much as they had in the 60s and 70s and even into the 80s. So when they would play, it would always feel like a family reunion or a gathering or just something that felt like much less about it being this profession and more just a way of life. The way that we lived and connected with each other. And we sometimes have 50 people on stage at the encore of a show. You would have the cousins and the. All of the. The nephews and nieces and lots of people that were musicians, but also some who weren't, who would still just dabble in music. And by the end of the show felt very much like a tribal ritual where there was music happening and people were dancing and it wasn't about any one person. That was the biggest influence that I took away from my family and the music that they made. Besides my father being a musical mentor for me and my mother being a mentor for me throughout my. My whole childhood, it was that communal feeling and that. That. That feeling of ritual, that feeling of it being an expression of everyone collectively within a culture, within a lineage. It's funny because I still take that communal vibration with me. Whether I'm playing Beethoven or I'm playing in an arena with Prince, or if I'm doing a love right with my band Stay Human. It's all connected to me. I don't hear a difference or feel a difference.
- [10:01]
Debbie Millman
You grew up in Kenner, Louisiana, and I understand that your first instrument was playing guitar on an old tennis racket. You then graduated to drums. Now, your mother had a career as an environmental activist, but it was actually she who enrolled you in your first piano lessons along with your older sister. And you've said that your mom is a visionary and a clairvoyant when it comes to understanding what someone should be. What do you think she recognized in you at the time?
- [10:37]
John Batiste
Mom has a gift to see the truth of things. She can look and really zero in on what's happening and see what someone is saying and also what they're not saying. And that goes for any of the great clairvoyant or near prophetic folks in the history of the world. There's just something that they have the ability to see that other people can't see. And it's true. So she has that. And she was really very much a part of the early years of me figuring out what instrument to land on, eventually it being the piano and figuring out how to go about pedagogy, how to study the instrument, how to get your craft to a level where no matter what you and your ability is untouchable. You can do whatever it is that you want to do, what you imagine it can be real. And she was very, very important in my journey to get to the place of studying the instrument with that kind of mentality.
- [11:55]
Debbie Millman
You were 11 years old when you started playing piano, but have said that it was very late. 11 years is too old to start learning an instrument.
- [12:05]
John Batiste
Well, 11 for a professional musician in New Orleans is pretty late. If you think about my peers, you know, I had folks who I grew up with. These real prodigious talents started when they were 3, and by the time we were 13, they had been a decade long veteran playing shows and touring, you know, talking about folks the likes of trombone shorty Troy Andrews, who we started. One of our first projects was starting a band together. When we were both in high school, in 10th grade, and trombone shorty was his name, by the way, because he played the trombone at the age of two and the trombone was taller than he was. And my other good friend, Sullivan Fortner, who is probably at age 5, he was the choir director and organist at his father's church. And my biggest inspiration from my cousins was my. My late cousin Russell Batiste. The young lion, David Russell Batiste Jr. Who passed away last year. He's pretty much considered one of the greatest drummers in history and inarguably one of the most important drummers from New Orleans ever. And seeing him play and hearing the stories about him playing when he was just a kid, he was born with this affinity for the drums and could play. You know, if there was a griot telling the story and we were going back to the tribe in Africa, he would be the drummer that would just emerge from the children, and he would be the one with the orb around him that is glowing when the drum is put in the middle of the tribe. He's got. He would have that ability to connect on a rhythmic level and feel like you're hearing 10 people playing.
- [14:16]
Debbie Millman
How. How does that happen? Where does that manifest? How do people sort of emerge in their lives at 2 or 3 or 4 years old as prodigies?
- [14:27]
John Batiste
Well, there's a prodigy, and then there's something that is prodigious, but it is rooted in a lineage of culture that is very rare to have in the. In the world. There are hubs of it. You know, if you go to parts of Brazil or different parts of the Caribbean or New Orleans, very much so. In America, maybe singularly, there's this culture of multigenerational wisdom that's passed down and traditions that are passed down. It's something that is such a. A nurtured concept and a nurtured reality, and there's a spiritual component to it as well. However deep you want to get into that. I believe there is something that is transferred from one generation to the next, and it can be transferred into someone who's two. But be something that has been in existence in the world since the beginning of time. And that's how you can see a kid 5 years old in the second line. And they're dancing in this way with so much flavor and verve and energy that it feels like they've been here before. New Orleans is a place that there's a lot of, you know, they got that hoodoo. There's a lot of magic going on. It's very Much a different thing than the typical prodigy that you would see.
- [15:57]
Debbie Millman
You described yourself earlier in our conversation as a deeply introverted young boy. I also understand when you were young, you were really terrified of singing. What made you so scared of singing on stage?
- [16:16]
John Batiste
Well, I started singing before I played the piano, and I had very, very traumatic memories of it because I was so shy, I wouldn't want to sing. And the moments that I would sing would be moments where I was encouraged to the point of basically being pushed, but not. Not forced, but almost just with the peer pressure of my cousins or my. My. My family really having this vision of, you know, as all the black families from that era, you see the Jacksons and Michael Jackson, the young, cute kid, that's the one that goes up front to sing, that was me. And I was singing, but I was always shy, and I always had this feeling of dread when I had to sing in front of folks. And I remember when I was growing up in middle school, the day before I had to sing for a commercial that we were doing. I was playing hide and seek on the playground, and bang, I got an injury, fell into the wall. There was something that scraped my nose, and there was a scar just right across my nose. And it was the day before I had to film this commercial where I was sitting and in a tree and I was singing. It was like the Itsy Bitsy Spider or some. Some nursery rhyme. I know it was the Itsy Bitsy Spider. Actually. I remember having to sing it a million times, and the skull was on my nose and I'm afraid of heights, so I'm in this tree. And I think that that moment really kind of was like, oh, wow, this is really, really something that I'm going to stray away from for as long as possible. So I don't think I sung publicly again for maybe 10 years, those years. Then I developed a very serious involvement with my studies of the piano and studies of jazz and studies of being a composer. Then even having bands, you know, I started leading bands. I developed very quickly once I started. So by the time I was 15, I was putting bands together and composing music and playing jazz shows with. With folks all around town and. And lead my own recording sessions. So that was a season, and then there was another season, and then we came back around to singing.
- [18:51]
Debbie Millman
Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?
- [18:55]
John Batiste
I wrote a song called Red Beans. Red Beans. You know, we eat red beans every.
- [19:00]
Debbie Millman
Oh, that's on what? That's on your first album, I believe.
- [19:03]
Advertiser
Yeah.
- [19:03]
John Batiste
Yeah, that's right. Red beans. Yeah.
- [19:08]
Debbie Millman
Which I know is one of your favorite things as well.
- [19:10]
John Batiste
Oh, my goodness. It's the best. You know, it's a blues. Feels great to hear that song every time. It picks me right back.
- [19:24]
Debbie Millman
You and Trombone Shorty began sneaking into clubs to play as teenagers. And, you know, I was wondering, you were talking about the trombone being taller than Trombone Shorty. How did he sneak a trombone into a club?
- [19:44]
John Batiste
You know, he's. He's. He's just a. A legend. One night, I remember we drove up to a club in the 6th Ward, and it was after school, and a band was playing, and they had called Troy, and they said, you should come down and. And meet us and play. And at the time, and still to this day, I don't really play trumpet. It's one of the few instruments that I don't play. But he had a pocket trumpet, Troy, and he's like, the way we're going to go in is I'm going to call him and let them know we're outside. They're going to open the door and we have to just walk in playing.
- [20:28]
Debbie Millman
The Love Riots begin.
- [20:30]
John Batiste
Yeah, yeah, exactly right. It's a beautiful moment because it was like I started to play the pocket trumpet. He's playing the trombone, and we're walking and playing. And then after a while, you could tell the folks at the door realized that, A, oh, I wasn't playing, actually, and B, we were underage. But they were like, just let them. Just let them have it.
- [20:56]
Debbie Millman
Now, I understand that one of the other things that helped you get out of your introversion was sports. And I was really surprised when I read this. You played point guard for one of the teams in your city, and you were on an AAU national team and won a championship. And one of the things that I thought was so interesting was that you said that the experience taught you a lot about hustle, team hierarchy and ego. And I was wondering if you could elaborate on how it taught you that and what you took away from that in your music and included in your music.
- [21:34]
John Batiste
Wow. There's so much that you can learn from playing on a sports team. It's very, very hard to win at that level without a coordinated effort. It's never one individual. So all of that's very, very important, very important lessons as an artist, as a composer, as a bandleader.
- [21:55]
Debbie Millman
I remember reading or hearing Michael Jordan. No, actually, it was Scottie Pippen who said that Michael Jordan wasn't just a great player, he was also the reason that so many of us could Play better?
- [22:10]
John Batiste
Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm a huge studier of Michael Jordan. He's like a muse of sorts. And I've studied how he would practice. In the practice, he would bring the same level of intensity or sometimes more than he would bring in a game. So that when the game happened, it wasn't unusual for him to push to that level. And what did that do? Made everyone that was on the team in practice rise to a level where maybe they weren't used to doing that in their entire career before then. And then the level of the team rises because everyone is now rising to this level. It's like that with music. It's the same thing. There's some players who, when they play in a band, something happens to make everybody want to play more together, want to play better. That's the type of thing that you want to feed, you want to nurture. Doesn't matter whose name is on the bill. If you're on a bandstand, you may not be the person who wrote the arrangement. But we gotta be able to talk it out. We gotta be able to discuss what'll make it better. You may not be me, my name is on the headline. But guess what? I have no ego about you telling me I'm wrong. The best idea must always rise to the top. And that's what's gonna serve the people the best. That's what's gonna nurture everybody that's out there who came to be a part of this community that we've built around the music. That's why we're here.
- [23:51]
Debbie Millman
I think also that's what makes your live show so electric. There's this sense of the word isn't really even collaboration. It's sort of more transcendent than that where you're all sort of in the zone together, working to make something electric. John, you released your first album, Times in New Orleans in 2005. You also co produced the album with your father. Back then you were a 17 year old Jonathan Batiste. Very formal. I was very surprised to see that on the COVID of the first album.
- [24:25]
John Batiste
Yes, Times in New Orleans.
- [24:30]
Debbie Millman
Despite growing up with all the musicians in your family being self taught, after graduating from New Orleans center for Creative Arts High School, you became the first person in your family to go to college for music. I'm wondering if you can tell us about your audition to get into Juilliard.
- [24:52]
John Batiste
Well, I had a real lineage of musicians, obviously, as we talked about, but in my immediate family going to New York and living in New York that hadn't happened. So there were a few things that took an adjustment. One was the snow. I didn't have a winter coat. And the first time I went to New York, it was snowing. And my audition was in the snowy morning after landing the night before from Louisiana. And it was the first audition of the year at Juilliard. And you know, people have so much pressure over these auditions because the acceptance rate is so low that you gotta come in and it feels like you're going to play a debut at the biggest moment of your life. And there's all this energy around it. And you walk in and I'm walking with my Converse All Stars and I'm trekking through the snow and I got a hole in my Converse All Stars at the bottom. So they just turn into lily pads as I'm walking across the concert hall floor to my audition. And then I sit at the most grand piano that I've ever seen in my entire life. And there's an anticipation in there. I remember sitting down, settling in and looking over to my right and there's a panel of stern faced audition monitors who are the instructors, who are a real lineage of jazz musicians who I've known from records but never have met in person before. And they're there to kind of witness this audition and to. To prompt me to do different things. So I sit and I'm playing and I go through all the different things that I'm asked to do successfully. And then there's a moment where there's a piece of music that's placed on the piano. The music bed is, is set for you to sight read. Play this piece that you've never seen, and we'll just wait until you're done. So I'm looking and as I start to play, I'm improvising while looking at this sheet of music, knowing that what I'm playing is not what's on the sheet of music. The reason being is that I started at 11 and by the time I was 13, I had developed my ear so quickly that I sped past sight reading and I learned to read, but I never really sight read music before. So I graduate high school a year early. So I'm there 16 or 17 years old, and I hadn't really learned to sight read yet, but I didn't want to tell them that. So I start to create music extemporaneously, which now in retrospect I realized was perhaps even more unusual and singularly impressive for me to do that than to read what was on the page. So I Get in. But I left that audition completely puzzled because I didn't know what they thought. And it was just such a moment of quandary after. It was a moment of silence, pregnant pause. They say they're looking at me like, okay.
- [28:43]
Debbie Millman
So let's. You move to New York City. You get pneumonia right away. Did you get pneumonia because of walking in the snow that day in your Lily Pad sneakers?
- [28:51]
John Batiste
No. So that was. The audition was at a different time. It was a winter. And then the year goes by into the summer, and they let you know. And then the next fall, you go. So I came back after that first audition, and I got the letter. And you get in and you sign up and you go up to New York, and I move into the dorms, and I'm there. And then a week in, I'm so low. I'm just like, what's going on? I'm tired. My energy is so zapped. And I find out that I have walking pneumonia.
- [29:28]
Debbie Millman
You fainted in the subway, right?
- [29:30]
John Batiste
Oh, yeah. Fainted in the subway. All types of things that just like. It was a comedy of errors, except there was no laughter, only the errors. I went to the hospital, and, you know, that was a moment of truth where, you know, I'm in the hospital. They keep me there for a few days, three or four days, actually, almost a week. And I'm sitting there missing the beginnings of everyone developing their friendships and the orientation of all the students coming together and the adjustment of moving to a new place. And I'm thinking, should I even be here? What am I doing? Maybe it's time for me to go home. Maybe it's time for me to figure out another path. Just in general, being alone, not having family. I didn't tell my folks until later because, you know, I didn't want to have the situation of making them worried and also feeling like they had to come up. But at the same time, it was no one but my cousin, my second cousin Lisa, who lived in Harlem. She showed up as my only family. And then I got out, get back into school and just keep on pushing, and the rest is history. I stuck it out. But that was a moment of truth. Those first few months were very much a trying time. And even after that, there was an adjustment in terms of the culture of Juilliard and of this sort of European, classical, New York, Northeastern vibration and approach. And there's a lot to New York. It's just the best place to be. And also one of the most daunting places to try and conquer or take A bite out of the Big Apple, Right. So there's so much. So much stimulus, so much opportunity, so many things pushing a young artist in different directions. So many things that in encouraging you or competing for your attention, both polarities existing all at once from all angles, Right. So that really was something where you have to find yourself in the midst of it all, and you have to cultivate who you are and construct your style, construct your artistry. And it felt like a building of something from the ground up. And in many ways, the first month was that sort of trial by fire, that refinement. You got to go through the fire to really refine your resolve. So that was a beautiful thing in retrospect, in many ways, it was beautiful to face some level of adversity alone and to figure your way through it.
- [32:19]
Debbie Millman
You decided to stay at Juilliard and then go on to get your master's degree. How did studying classical music impact your musicianship?
- [32:31]
John Batiste
Well, I had studied classical music when I was a kid, and my mother was really the one that in those early years when I was talking about study, she was approaching the classical side of study in New Orleans, actually. So she was approaching that form of pedagogy as a important building block. And I had a teacher, Ms. Shirley, who I studied with for years. And then I moved to New York, and I found a. A teacher who I still study with, William Doglion. He was and is one of the reasons that I really understood the classical repertoire and understood piano technique as a whole and the craft that I've built over the years. I'm very indebted to him for kind of giving me some foundational principles about the instrument. So between Ms. Shirley in the early years and then moving to New York and working with William and then going to Juilliard, there was a lot of different perspectives on the canon, classical music and the history of it, Understanding all the aspects of where it has arrived in contemporary culture and its place in contemporary culture, and thinking about my lineage, my history, and my place in culture and where I come from and the convergence of all those things.
- [34:07]
Debbie Millman
While you were in school, you were mentored by Wynton Marsalis. You toured with Cassandra Wilson. You played with Letty Kravitz and Prince. You scored the organ music for Spike Lee's Red Hook Summer. You became artistic director at large for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. What was driving you then? And is it the same thing that is still driving you now?
- [34:33]
John Batiste
I'm very driven, and I think about my place in history and where I am best positioned to have the type of impact that will really resonate. And that's the thing that I think about often that drives me to this date is you have this real gift of being here, being alive. You have this time on earth to really do what only you can do. You are you, you are you. And it just is very much a true gift to be who you are, whoever you are. And we have to be able to, to figure that out in a very short amount of time, you know. Yeah, there's so much that I feel is inspiring or interesting or maybe it's something that I am drawn to. But you have to zero in on a few things and you have to really find out how to maximize everything that you're doing because you just don't have that much time. So for me, that's what I was thinking back then and I'm still thinking like that now. And sometimes that can come across as perfectionism. I can't put half of myself in anything that I'm doing, no matter how big or small. I have to give it everything. So whether it's writing a new piece of music or making an album or performance, or whether it's figuring out the best way for us to have a great vacation with Sulaika and I and our friends. How to just how to relax at the highest possible level of of execution. How to execute relaxation at the highest level. That's just how I'm wired. No matter what I've gotten to or what I've been able to do, I'm always just driving for the core of things. Just how do we get right to it?
- [36:47]
Josie Santee
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- [37:41]
John Batiste
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- [38:07]
Advertiser
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- [38:32]
Debbie Millman
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- [39:20]
John Batiste
Yes, I have a prayer room at home. And as someone who is away from home in those early years of traveling with different bands when I'm, you know, 17, 18, 19, and I'm touring around the world with Roy Hargrove, you know, Cassandra Wilson, I had the the Bible app and the Bible, you know, pocket Bible. And then now I have a Bible. It's an audio friend of mine in the Bahamas gave me this. It's like a necklace that you can wear and there's an audio Bible attached to it. Between that and then every time I go back to my room and finding that time to be alone in conversation with God and the Creator gives you that direction and that love, that divine alignment occurs in your life and you have a peace that comes from that. There's a peace that comes and my grandfather, he gave me a Bible. He also, he passed away last year and he was one of my heroes in life. He wasn't a musician. He was my mother's father. He was instrumental in helping to really inspire me in my activism in the different ways of using my belief about humanity and my faith as a means to advocate for people. He wrote in my Bible the Year that he passed, he said, keep the faith. And he used to always say that. He used to always say, and every time you sign off or talking to him, keep the faith, you know, you're going through something. Keep the faith. That was his thing and he lived that. So just between all of those examples that he set, between my relationship with the faith, I've found so much strength and so much of a inspiration in ways that may be evident in my work and also in other ways that maybe it's beneath the surface, but it's always there.
- [41:30]
Debbie Millman
You talk about music as something divine and how we're all at our best when we're in union with God or the Creator. And is that something you have to work at?
- [41:43]
John Batiste
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, there's a sense that someone can be closer to God. I think they're closer to God than someone else. And I don't believe that that's not true. There's no authority to have someone who has dedicated more time doesn't mean that they're closer to God. We all have access to God. That's the part that I think can seem like a paradox of reality, because it does take work, but all of us have access to it. If you spend the time, then you can have the presence of the Spirit more alive within you and, and alive within your, your life. And it helps you to, to deal with the darkness that will come. And if you don't put the time in and don't put the work in, God is still always there. So it's we, we can sometimes get into trouble when someone thinks they're an authority or, or, or can dictate to you because they feel that they have more of a line to God than you do. So that's that part. I'm always. Whenever I share anything about faith, especially for those who may not have a faith practice, I always want to encourage folks, you know, you don't have to have a faith practice to know that God is with you. And once you know that, it changes everything. You'll find, you'll find it. You'll find your way. You're not on the outside of this. We're all here.
- [43:41]
Debbie Millman
You've talked about your belief that the Creator has a master plan for our lives, that he knew us before we were born and all the hairs of our head are accounted for. Do you have a sense of what the master plan of your life is?
- [43:57]
John Batiste
I mean, it's to serve him. To be very clear, everything that I pursue and all the ambition and drive that I have, it's really about this idea of being a good steward. You have a gift you've been given. You have a limited amount of time, and there's a lot of distractions. Okay, so that's the setup. That's the equation, Right? So if that's the equation, then you have to figure out when you're doing something, how to do it at the highest level, to the best of your ability, as if you were doing it unto God himself or herself. Doing everything as if it's unto God. Even if I'm seeing someone on the street and they are in need of. Of shelter, or they're in need of some. Some attention, even just a hello, that's God. There's God there. That if you give someone some food who's hungry, you're doing that unto God. Just this belief to walk in this space. My. My. One of my inspirations as my Uncle Thomas, he. He's not a professional musician. He's the youngest of the seven. He's the seventh son. He has this glow about him. And when we were kids, when we would visit him, because he moved from. From New Orleans when we were kids, and we visit him in California, and whenever he would see someone, he really embodied that. You know, anytime, without fail, he would keep. I remember him keeping money in his shirt pocket just to give to people who he would see on the street because he felt that we can't leave these people behind. That's what's really the drive of everything that. That I'm all about. So just trying to be excellent at the craft and push it and get to the highest level of musicianship and be remembered, but mainly remembered for that vibration. That's what we came up with, the idea calling the band Stay Human. That's all of the intention comes from that space. And I infuse that into the craft and it creates this thing that you see.
- [46:21]
Debbie Millman
So that infusion or tapping into that energy, how did you make the decision, if it was a decision or how did you evolve to bringing that energy into your live performances?
- [46:35]
John Batiste
I've always wanted to break or evolve the form of everything that I'm doing and not to be recognized for it. I think in some ways, things are just now catching up to some of the stuff that my colleagues and I were able to do, which is not an ego trip or saying anything other than to say that I don't care. I just want us to be authentic on stage. And there's so many things set up for you to be constricted and for you to fit into A mold that exists instead of to exist as you are. And for me, if I'm on stage and I'm in a concert hall, just a simple thing of the separation between the audience and me as a performer is something that I don't prescribe to. So you have to break form just to create a cohesive experience, both sonically, from a technical perspective, from a lighting perspective, from a choreography perspective, from a musical perspective, from a flow and time perspective, sequence. All these things you have to reconfigure just to create a relationship with the audience that isn't this hierarchical setup of performer on stage up high, audience down low, in the dark, observing. And that dynamic also is valuable in certain moments because maybe we want to shift into a dynamic where I'm in a prayer, meditation posture, and there's an observance of that. So then how do we configure a performance, or if you want to call it that, it's really a spiritual practice. How do we lead the audience through this spiritual practice and also have them be a part of creating it? So then you're doing both. So then it's not just a breakdown of this, this relationship, but it's a synthesis and an additional aspect of it that is being added. So now it's. It. It becomes something that I have not seen or heard, or there's not a precedent for it unless I go back into some indigenous cultures or ancient cultures. But even then it doesn't have the contemporary elements that I'm bringing to it, which is when we started to call what we do social music. Because the terms, words, the terms were just not encompassing enough to describe it. And genres were too narrow and, dare I say, insidious. But, but then I started to think about how these indigenous cultures, ancient cultures, ancient rituals, were not about entertaining. There is music before it was commodified in this way where it's put into these genre corridors. And if you play this kind of music, you play in this kind of place, and if you sell this kind of music, you're on this kind of label and you're in this section, then you, you, you kind of message it and, and market it and all the things according to that. And the performance then becomes a commodity that is in line with that thought process. Well, all of that wasn't in existence when people were making music before. Music was a form of entertainment and a part of a business structure. Music as a part of the fabric of everyday life. Music as a part of the way that we pass on wisdom and a time capsule of our wisdom. And it still is that. That was the big epiphany that I had when I was a kid in college. It was like, oh, music still is that. So how do we enact that reality of what the power of music is, particularly in live performance, and also participate in the contemporary world and in the music culture of our time? That was really my first steps into developing the live performance idiom that. That I've created that you see whenever you, you know, in all the different forms of. Whether it's me at a solo piano or me on the stage with my band and musicians from around the world, or me with an orchestra.
- [51:25]
Debbie Millman
Thinking about words made me think about how you've evolved your voice. And you began singing on your albums more prominently around the time you formed Stay Human. You have quite a range, a rather extraordinary range of singing techniques. Have you? I'm assuming you've studied voice now, the way that you've studied piano.
- [51:53]
John Batiste
I did study voice, yes, absolutely. And still do, as I still study.
- [51:57]
Debbie Millman
The piano, you know, in your 2021 album, We Are, it showcased your voice not just as an instrument, but it was also. You were really sort of fulfilling this role as a storyteller. It was deeply personal, it was politically resonant, and you were talking about this sort of commodification of music. One of the most extraordinary things about that album was that this 11 Grammys you were nominated for were in all these different, really diverse categories. The first time that's ever happened in the history of music awards. But you've been very vocal about your purpose as a musician, not ever being about being rich or famous. Did becoming as well known as you did after winning your Oscar for soul and the boatload of Grammys change your perspective to making music? Were you ever concerned that that sort of outward kind of judgment or assessment would impact the sort of divinity that you have in making your own music?
- [53:06]
John Batiste
You know, it's impossible for it not to change your perspective. There's two things that happen that are on opposite sides of the spectrum. One is your perspective shifts because there's a lot more attention and a lot more expectation around what you're doing. But then for me, on the other side of the spectrum, I had been making music since I was a kid and professionally doing it. Putting out independent albums every other year, an album or an ep, independently, self produced, self funded. My first one, my dad and I produced my second one. I'm 19 years old, I'm in New York, my NY. Yep. All albums of diverse musical exploration developing under the banner of my form of music, social music, my vision of music and what music is in society today, and developing this concept of really paying homage to so many of those who I stand on the shoulders of, while also trying to add to this continuum in a way that's authentic and of the highest level of craft, and really being rigorous about all of this, and also trying to make it entertaining and accessible and make a live experience that is both unique and also aligned with all of those principles of excellence of the great live performers of history. That means learning how to sing, learning how to dance, learning how to play, learning how to band lead, learning how to arrange and orchestrate. All these things that I'm bringing together. And I felt for many years, especially by the Grammys, that I was doing this. And there was no consequential critical analysis of it. There was no awards, not even nominations. There was no recognition of it. There was no sense of, wow, look at all that this young man and this group of young musicians have decided to be stewards of, to. To take on. And it was so counterculture. Even the jazz community and the classical community didn't necessarily embrace it. And even my mentors who were of the greats in these different communities didn't understand it at first. Many of them didn't know what I was doing and thought that I was maybe going in a direction that was aimless. A lot of this was very lonely then, to reach the year 2021, 22, and to have all of these things in one moment, almost in a span of two or three years, be recognized. It didn't change what my intentions or my approach is, because it had been so, ingrained, and I had gotten so used to being ignored and developing my wants, getting my wants in order, getting the things that matter to me in order to the point where, yes, I think this work should be recognized. Yes, I think what we're doing is very significant. And also taking my ego out of it, taking any sort of desire for recognition out of it, this is important, and I would be doing it even if nobody knew and if nobody ever recognizes it. So then when I got the highest level of recognition, there was a funny thing that happened again on two fronts. It changes your perspective, because then it kind of makes you. Well, maybe the expectation and the attention is now an opportunity to forward things and pursue things that I've always wanted to share with a wider base of people so that it can be remembered in history in a way that influences the next generation and continues building the lineage of all the things that I know are important and vital to us all. And then on the other side, I'm like, well, not caring about that is what. What pushed me here in the first place. That's what's most important at the end of the day. So it's kind of now a bit of a. It's a negotiation or rather a collaboration between using the platform and knowing the power of it, but also staying true to that kid that's within that was just doing things and breaking rules and disrupting from the inside. So I'm just. It's both. And I think it's good to have that polarity, that balance that's happening. Cause it breeds new things. It's just. I'm in a new era now.
- [58:16]
Debbie Millman
Well, you recently released a glorious new album titled Beethoven Blues. And you are adding genres to Beethoven's music that didn't even exist when he was alive. Flamenco and gospel and soul. And you said that the idea for this record was something you felt uniquely positioned to do. Why is that?
- [58:41]
John Batiste
Well, there's a true authenticity to me approaching Beethoven like this that perhaps is more authentic than me playing Beethoven as he composed it. It's more authentic for me to think of all music in this way. When I hear Beethoven and I'm playing that music. When I was growing up and doing piano competitions and I was playing Bach or I was doing competition or recital and then I would go and play at the Maple Leaf with Trombone Shorty and Troy and I would play and sometimes I would slip some of that Chopin or that, that Mozart into Dawa Shore at the Maple Leaf. I've always felt that music in particular going back to the video game music that I would listen to. And I learned a lot vicariously from playing the games and absorbing the score of the game. Those scores would go all around the world. And sometimes within one score there would be influences from all types of different music. So my relationship with music and melody is not one that's based in thinking of it as a separate silo. If you're in classical. And the approach to it is the same way. So it's very authentic to play Beethoven, to think about ways that it could. It can be expansive, 250 plus years of any melody existing. I think it's due for an update because it doesn't revoke the greatness of what it is and what it. What it was created to be. And its impact will stand. That doesn't ever change. But to expand on what this melody or this, this body of work, this canon of work has done in the world perhaps is more the objective that we should be thinking about 250 years in rather than preservation. And in particular, when there's so many styles of music that have come to bear that aren't canon, that should be canon. And we think of these styles and these techniques in a light that is lesser than what they are.
- [61:19]
Debbie Millman
There's quite a few musicians that cover other musicians work and have referred to that sort of coverage as interpretations. It feels to me when I'm listening to Beethoven Blues that you're having a conversation with Beethoven. It feels like there's this back and forthness that's happening. I don't know if that was something that you intended, but it doesn't feel so much as you're interpreting, as you are conversing.
- [61:47]
John Batiste
It's a conversation 1000%. A conversation that is big for me to have at this time in my life and time in my artistry to go back to classical music and have a conversation with Beethoven on record.
- [62:05]
Debbie Millman
Now, I noticed that the album has a subtitle and it is Batiste Piano Series, Volume 1. That leads me to believe that there might be a volume 2 and a 3 and maybe a 4. Any hints as to what that might be? Yes, on Mozart, Batiste on Monk, Baptiste on.
- [62:29]
John Batiste
I mean, there's so many different composers, artists in history that I want to have a conversation with. So I'm just imagining that as a place for that. There's so many different repertoire, so much that I could see myself in conversation with. And this is all again, a way of looking at the craft developing, becoming better, and then sharing that with community around the world and inspiring folks to be in conversation with these artists in this repertoire. So just thinking about it from that perspective, there's so many different volumes of the series that over the years I could see being made. I don't know exactly what the next one would be, but definitely be expecting of a lot of different explorations at the piano.
- [63:35]
Debbie Millman
As I was doing my research in preparation for the show, I kept finding references you made to the movie Forrest Gump. And so I have a couple of examples in the GQ10 Essential Things. You talk about Forrest Gump. Dump in a mug. Your song I Need you'd has the lyrics if you was Jenny. I guess I was a forest. And finally you said this to Quincy to describe Quincy Jones. He's like a Forrest Gump. He appears in history at all these critical moments and is somehow right at the center of it, shifting things forward. So I have a three word question for you. Why Forrest Gump?
- [64:15]
John Batiste
Oh, my goodness. That film has a special quality to it in the character of Forrest Gumption. Robert Zemeckis, the way they developed it, and Tom Hanks in that character. There was something that I saw in Forrest Gump that I studied and adopted, but also felt kindred to. For the first year of my life, I had cast on my legs. You know, the scene where he goes into the doctor. I had a similar moment like that where they told me I could I. Because I have very flat feet and my legs were crooked and all this stuff. They said you shouldn't play basketball and you shouldn't dance. All these things that, you know. But my club feet is why I dance like I do. Like, all of that became the thing that makes me who I am. And signatures of who I am, in fact, come from these things that early in my life were thought to be, maybe pose challenges for me. Also, him being this kind of historical avatar, going through all of these different moments. Something about that I really relate to just being in the. In different spaces, in different circles, and somehow being blessed to see things unfold, both as a participant, but somehow as an outsider, as an observer. At the same time. I've had a lot of different moments in my life like that. And there's a certain trait that you see with that character of pursuing their pure inspiration that I aspire to and relate to. That sometimes can seem like it's childish. You know, I also was a kid with. I mean, these days, probably be diagnosed as neurodivergent. But there's like, a childlike quality to being on the spectrum in a way that you don't see things in the same way as others maybe see them. It's a lot of interesting things that when I first saw that movie as a. As a youngster, I was like, oh, interesting. I like this whole story. But there's a magic to it and there's a quality to it that I relate to in some way. And it's Southern, too. You know, it's like a Southern. The way he talked when I first moved to New York, this accent that I have, I. You know, imagine it stronger. It's still just almost as strong. Just like the way they were. Like, you sound like. There's a lot of folks who called that out to me without me having said how much I love the movie. They just like, you got, like, this draw. It's like Forrest Gump or like, Bubba.
- [67:23]
Debbie Millman
Bubba Shrimp.
- [67:25]
John Batiste
Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. I like shrimp, too. So there you go, John.
- [67:31]
Debbie Millman
In 2016, you played a really magnificent rendition of Blackbird on the Daily show in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan stage and it was put up on YouTube where it currently has nearly 4,000 comments. But there's one comment I wanted to share with you because I doubt you read comments on YouTube. Marchills4131 said this every once in a while a talent comes along and you just shake your head and think, this one's a gift to all of humanity. God bless you. Jon Batiste John, thank you so much for making so much beautiful work that matters. And thank you for joining me today on Design Matters. To read more about John, you can go to his website jonbatiste.com his Grammy winning film American Symphony can be found on Netflix and all of his music, including Beethoven Blues, is available on vinyl and online. You can see John and Suleika on tour celebrating her new book the Book of Alchemy. And also John just kicked off his Maestro Tour, a uniquely intimate and masterful concert experience showcasing his genre defying artistry. This is the 20th year we've been podcasting Design Manners and I'd like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference. We can make a difference or we can do both. I'm Debbie Melman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
- [69:08]
Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor in Chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.
- [69:30]
Josie Santee
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