Batiste & Stay Human began performing impromptu outdoor concerts and quickly earned acclaim for their lively mix of jazz, gospel, pop, and R&B. He featured this group on his 2005 album Live in New York: At the Rubin Museum of Art.Įventually, Batiste added saxophonist Eddie Barbash to his trio, and the ensemble Stay Human was born. It was during this time that he began performing around the city with his trio featuring bassist Phil Kuehn and drummer Joe Saylor. A year later, he released his debut album, 2005's Times in New Orleans, featuring drummer Jason Marsalis, saxophonist Donald Harrison, Jr., and trumpeter Christian Scott.Īfter high school, Batiste studied at the Juilliard School in New York City. Educated at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, he graduated (along with classmate Trombone Shorty) in 2004. Batiste followed that with his stylistically cross-pollinated eighth solo album, We Are, in 2021.īorn in 1986 in Kenner, Louisiana, Batiste grew up in a musical family as the nephew of New Orleans musical greats Lionel Batiste and Harold Battiste, and first performed with his relatives in the Batiste Brothers Band.

He has also scored films, such as Spike Lee's Red Hook Summer and 2020's animated Pixar movie Soul, the latter of which won an Oscar for Best Original Score. Batiste has earned accolades including Grammy nominations for his rootsy take on 'Saint James Infirmary' off 2018's expansive Hollywood Africans and for 2020's Chronology of a Dream: Live at the Village Vanguard. to Trombone Shorty - has become a visible signature of his work. Though heralded as a brilliant pianist and organist, his use of the melodica - which has graced albums by artists ranging from Stevie Wonder and Harry Connick, Jr. Batiste has busked on street corners, held music clinics worldwide, and managed to draw multitudes to his wide-open, accessible brand of rhythmic swing on virtually any keyboard instrument he chooses, in any genre. A member of the esteemed Batiste musical family, he emerged in his teens as a gifted jazz pianist with a strong grasp of the Crescent City jazz and R&B sound. He has toured the globe with his own Stay Human ensemble and issued releases like 2013's chart-topping jazz album Social Music. Since 2015, Batiste has been the bandleader and musical director for CBS' The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Keyboardist, singer, and composer Jon Batiste is an ebullient and highly eclectic performer with a sound that combines the jazz traditions of his New Orleans home with a vibrant blend of funk, pop, and R&B.

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