Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Jon Batiste

Transcript

Jon Batiste · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, y'all, it's justin Richmond. Today on the show,
0:22
Speaker 1: we're talking to John Batiste, someone who I absolutely love
0:27
Speaker 1: for bringing jazz back to Late Night. From the days
0:30
Speaker 1: of Doc seven Sin on Carson to Branford Marsalis on Leno,
0:34
Speaker 1: Late Night was one of the last places keeping jazz
0:37
Speaker 1: alive in households across the country. Of course, it would
0:41
Speaker 1: be John Batiste to bring that tradition back. Batiste is
0:44
Speaker 1: an overachiever. As a kid, he was a state champion
0:47
Speaker 1: basketball player and a chess champion. And then when he
0:50
Speaker 1: turned his attention to music at age fourteen, after picking
0:53
Speaker 1: up drums then switching to piano, he started a band
0:56
Speaker 1: with fellow New Orleans musician Trombone Shorty, and that still
1:00
Speaker 1: wasn't enough. He had to then go to Juilliard. Today,
1:04
Speaker 1: Batiste is the band leader on The Late Show with
1:06
Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert and an Oscar winning composer for the Pick
1:09
Speaker 1: Sorry animated movie Soul. He also received the highest number
1:13
Speaker 1: of Grammy nominations this year, with eleven, including Album of
1:17
Speaker 1: the Year for his most recent release, We Are Let's
1:21
Speaker 1: listen to a bit of the song Cry from that album,
1:23
Speaker 1: which expertly blends a number of genres. John considers we
1:45
Speaker 1: are his best work yet. As you can tell from
1:48
Speaker 1: that clip, it's an accessible mix of jazz, blues, soul,
1:52
Speaker 1: and hip hop. Batisse talks with Bruce Headlam today about
1:55
Speaker 1: what it was like coming up in legendary Nola barrooms.
1:59
Speaker 1: He also talks about setting up a piano in the
2:01
Speaker 1: midst of Brooklyn protests after George Floyd's murder, and he
2:04
Speaker 1: talks about what it meant to have Obama call him
2:07
Speaker 1: personally after hearing his new album, This is Broken raping
2:13
Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richard. Here's
2:18
Speaker 1: Bruce Headlam with John Batiste. Let's start by talking about
2:23
Speaker 1: year album which came out last year and it's been
2:25
Speaker 1: nominated for a million Grammys. You're gonna be one of
2:28
Speaker 1: those guys at the end of your career who has
2:29
Speaker 1: like one hundred and seventy Grammys, right, my goodness. Well,
2:34
Speaker 1: you know, I make music and I just keep my
2:36
Speaker 1: head down and work on the craft. And this is
2:38
Speaker 1: incredible because think about the process this year for the Grammys,
2:42
Speaker 1: how transparent it's become, and this year they're really pushing
2:47
Speaker 1: for it to be peer voted without so many committees,
2:53
Speaker 1: and to have everybody who's an expert in their field
2:56
Speaker 1: nominate me in their field, you know, classical folk. I
3:01
Speaker 1: don't know what to say. It's just an honor beyond words,
3:04
Speaker 1: and I'm very humbled by the nominations. You know, one
3:07
Speaker 1: thing about this album, like listening to it with your
3:10
Speaker 1: other albums, is this is such a rhythmic album. Did
3:13
Speaker 1: you write it differently? Were you writing it at the
3:16
Speaker 1: piano or did you start with rhythm for some of
3:18
Speaker 1: these songs. Well, I think that I'm just getting more
3:25
Speaker 1: and more in tune with my artist trip, and I
3:27
Speaker 1: feel like I'm just getting started, feel like I'm getting better.
3:31
Speaker 1: I don't know why. There's this mentality that artists as
3:36
Speaker 1: they get older, you know, they peak and then at
3:38
Speaker 1: some point they can't find the rhythm again. And maybe
3:42
Speaker 1: that would be true for me. But I feel like
3:44
Speaker 1: this album is my first album. It's almost as if
3:47
Speaker 1: I'm a late bloomer in that way. I started music
3:51
Speaker 1: and recording when I was sixteen seventeen, but you know,
3:54
Speaker 1: this feels like my first album in the sense of
3:56
Speaker 1: me getting my game in my package together. You did
4:00
Speaker 1: start as a drummer, is that right. Yeah, I started
4:03
Speaker 1: as a drummer. I dabbled on piano, but I was
4:06
Speaker 1: not a pianist by definition. Now, a lot of pianist
4:11
Speaker 1: I've talked to really started at as drummers. They say
4:14
Speaker 1: it had a big effect on their piano playing. Did
4:16
Speaker 1: being a drummer affect how you approached the piano? Everything
4:20
Speaker 1: is everything. You get a sense of connectivity between all
4:25
Speaker 1: types of activities that you do, especially at that age.
4:28
Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking about when I was eleven. I
4:29
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything that directly impacted the next thing,
4:35
Speaker 1: but it all affected everything. I didn't actively become a
4:39
Speaker 1: musician or a music listener until I was about fifteen
4:43
Speaker 1: or sixteen. Everything before that point was acquired through osmosis.
4:48
Speaker 1: I had so many different experiences from my dad being
4:52
Speaker 1: a musician and my uncle's plan in the blues and
4:56
Speaker 1: Chitland circuit of the Southeast United States, and then Plan
4:59
Speaker 1: you know folks like Jackie Wilson, Isaac Hayes, King, Floyd
5:04
Speaker 1: Lloyd Price, blues singers, folks singers, soul singers of the
5:07
Speaker 1: black idiom of that time. Then you have my sister
5:11
Speaker 1: who's listening to cash money records and the Hot Boys
5:14
Speaker 1: and Alanis Moore set on cassette tape, my cousins who
5:18
Speaker 1: are advanced music producers at this time, producing making beats, rapping.
5:23
Speaker 1: You know. I was studying classical piano lessons. My mom,
5:27
Speaker 1: she insisted that I take classical music. She was not
5:29
Speaker 1: a musician, but a very aerodype person. She had two degrees.
5:33
Speaker 1: She was an environmentalist before it was in vogue. She
5:36
Speaker 1: would tell me to read books and things that I
5:38
Speaker 1: didn't have any real connection to in my environment. But
5:42
Speaker 1: it just kind of got me to thinking about a
5:43
Speaker 1: lot of things. And then I played sports, played basketball
5:48
Speaker 1: competitively until I was fourteen fifteen, won a national AAU
5:52
Speaker 1: championship and things like that, chess championships. I was a
5:57
Speaker 1: gamer and a comic book kid more than a music fan.
5:59
Speaker 1: And then I also went to jazz camps because I'm
6:02
Speaker 1: in New Orleans and I'm studying with these guys who
6:04
Speaker 1: are like village elders. You're talking about Ellis Marsalis, Alvin Batiz,
6:09
Speaker 1: my late great mentor and the one who actually helped
6:11
Speaker 1: me to find my voice as a jazz musician when
6:14
Speaker 1: I was fifteen sixteen. But this is when I was
6:16
Speaker 1: like eleven or twelve, and I didn't understand the word
6:18
Speaker 1: he was saying, and I was just doing it because
6:20
Speaker 1: it was another one of the many activities and things
6:22
Speaker 1: that I was doing. So I didn't really buy my
6:25
Speaker 1: first record or listen to music or say that this
6:28
Speaker 1: influenced that as a musician until I was about fifteen.
6:33
Speaker 1: I was ambivalent to it. It was just around me
6:36
Speaker 1: before that age. I wasn't really an active musician or
6:40
Speaker 1: considered myself a musician until I was fifteen. So it's
6:44
Speaker 1: hard for me to say that my drumming was an
6:47
Speaker 1: impactful thing on my piano playing because it was all
6:52
Speaker 1: just a part of this really rich tapestry of my
6:56
Speaker 1: upbringing that I was fortunate enough to be born into.
6:59
Speaker 1: Without even my knowledge of it being something that is
7:02
Speaker 1: so culturally rich or diverse, I just was in it.
7:05
Speaker 1: And I actually was more ambivalent to being a musician
7:07
Speaker 1: than anything, because everybody was a musician on my father's
7:11
Speaker 1: side of the family. So it was just like, well,
7:13
Speaker 1: I do this, but I don't want to do this
7:16
Speaker 1: for a living. I mean the family business. You want
7:19
Speaker 1: to escape, Yeah, it's like what you know. Couple with
7:21
Speaker 1: the fact that I had this feeling that I wanted
7:24
Speaker 1: to leave New Orleans to explore the world and see
7:27
Speaker 1: the world because I just had so many ideas about
7:29
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be,
7:32
Speaker 1: and at a certain point, as beautiful as home is
7:36
Speaker 1: and it'll always be home for me, I felt like
7:38
Speaker 1: I needed to make a home for myself somewhere else.
7:42
Speaker 1: And one of your songs is about that, isn't it?
7:45
Speaker 1: On the new albums at Boyhood? About Is that about
7:47
Speaker 1: your father telling you to what it's going to be
7:49
Speaker 1: like in New York City? Do you thinking of boyhood?
7:52
Speaker 1: And tell the Truth? Both songs are about this idea
7:54
Speaker 1: of growing up, coming out of this age of being
7:58
Speaker 1: a boy and a child and a son of your parents,
8:01
Speaker 1: to being a man, being your own man, and understanding
8:04
Speaker 1: you know. He says, tell it like it is love
8:06
Speaker 1: how you live and when you're doing what you do,
8:09
Speaker 1: tell the truth. A lot of people tell you have fun,
8:12
Speaker 1: do your best, but tell the truth. Tell the truth
8:15
Speaker 1: is different to do your best, have fun, give it
8:17
Speaker 1: you all. Tell the truth says something very specific about
8:22
Speaker 1: you going into a dinner Vipers. You're going into a
8:24
Speaker 1: place where there's a lot of posturing and dishonesty and
8:27
Speaker 1: lacks authenticity. So what's gonna make you successful? What's your
8:34
Speaker 1: definition of success? At least that he was trying to
8:37
Speaker 1: impart to me. And what that song is about is
8:40
Speaker 1: a lot of people may not see your truth as
8:44
Speaker 1: successful or as the way or as the thing that
8:48
Speaker 1: is what you should be pursuing. But tell it like
8:51
Speaker 1: it is love how you live when when you're doing
8:54
Speaker 1: what you do, tell the truth. So tell the truth
8:57
Speaker 1: is really about that. You know, those lyrics are all true.
9:01
Speaker 1: Listening to that song. My dad had a small house
9:03
Speaker 1: up on the east side East Louisiana State Drive, small
9:06
Speaker 1: house up on the east side of the Magnani tree
9:09
Speaker 1: in the front yard. You know, this is where I
9:11
Speaker 1: grew up. He grew up in The times were hard
9:13
Speaker 1: and gritty. You know, tell me stories about growing up
9:16
Speaker 1: on tour, people coming into the club pulling out a
9:20
Speaker 1: rifle and the band having to jump behind stacks to
9:23
Speaker 1: amplify as a driving packing the van, you know, touring
9:27
Speaker 1: and driving, being the tour manager, the band performing and
9:31
Speaker 1: also the roadie all in one. Yeah, you know, this
9:34
Speaker 1: is the kind of stuff that that song is about. Wow,
9:38
Speaker 1: do you think you've been able to do that your
9:40
Speaker 1: whole career. Has there ever been a time you thought
9:43
Speaker 1: I'm not quite doing it, I'm not quite telling the
9:45
Speaker 1: truth here. No, I've always told the truth. That's whether
9:49
Speaker 1: it's to my immediate career advancement or detriment. And I've
9:54
Speaker 1: always told the truth. I've happened to get to a
9:56
Speaker 1: point now where telling the truth has allowed me to
9:58
Speaker 1: win an Oscar and being nominated for all these Grammys
10:01
Speaker 1: and all these things. But I know, I don't take
10:03
Speaker 1: it for granted. I'm very humble by the fact that
10:06
Speaker 1: me being who I am and being recognized in this
10:08
Speaker 1: way as a me to have success. And I'm on
10:11
Speaker 1: TV and I'm playing a night in Tunisia on TV.
10:14
Speaker 1: I'm playing jazz and these types of music you never
10:16
Speaker 1: hear on TV, at least when I was growing up,
10:18
Speaker 1: I didn't hear it. And now I'm able to be
10:20
Speaker 1: a household name in a sense doing something that's so
10:23
Speaker 1: true to me. And one day that's not gonna work,
10:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure, so the tables will turn and it will
10:28
Speaker 1: be a moment where me doing this thing and doing
10:31
Speaker 1: my things not necessarily going to be the thing that
10:33
Speaker 1: is going to advance me the most. I'm getting better
10:36
Speaker 1: at telling the truth of who I am and making
10:38
Speaker 1: it something that most people can understand. It's accessible, it's translatable,
10:44
Speaker 1: and that's the goal, right. It's not about popularity. It's
10:47
Speaker 1: about tapping into something in the soul of human kind
10:51
Speaker 1: that is universal and makes people feel like they're not alone.
10:54
Speaker 1: So if I can do that, boom, it's a win.
10:58
Speaker 1: When I was listening to this album, you do a
11:00
Speaker 1: lot of things with your voice. You got a lot
11:03
Speaker 1: of different sounds, and that used to be more common
11:08
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking more pop and soul singers like Stevie
11:12
Speaker 1: Wonder when they talk about his voice, he's got like
11:14
Speaker 1: three or four voices. Paul McCartney's another one who would
11:18
Speaker 1: like he'd growl sometimes, he would do different things. Tell
11:21
Speaker 1: me how you how you approach singing. It's about the
11:24
Speaker 1: message of the song. It's about serving the message of
11:28
Speaker 1: the song, and that means that you have something that
11:35
Speaker 1: you can say honestly. The voice doesn't lie. The voice
11:41
Speaker 1: is so pure and we're so in tune with hearing
11:46
Speaker 1: people's voices from the time that we're born. Musicians, non musicians,
11:51
Speaker 1: music lovers, non music lovers. We just have this radar
11:55
Speaker 1: for truth in the voice, for emotion being transmitted through
12:00
Speaker 1: the voice. And if someone knows that you're not bought
12:05
Speaker 1: in or you're telling something that isn't really to your
12:09
Speaker 1: core a truth for you is not going to stay connected.
12:14
Speaker 1: But for me, the easiest way to do that is
12:17
Speaker 1: to just be telling the truth all the time, or
12:19
Speaker 1: to say something that you really mean all the time.
12:22
Speaker 1: And if I can't get to that, something needs to
12:24
Speaker 1: be adjusted with the music. Something needs to be adjusted
12:26
Speaker 1: with the lyric, something needs to be adjusted with the key,
12:29
Speaker 1: something needs to be adjusted somewhere because I'm not feeling it.
12:33
Speaker 1: I'm not getting to that space with it. Were there
12:36
Speaker 1: songs on this album that you struggled with to find
12:39
Speaker 1: the right voice for? Oh, absolutely all of them. I
12:42
Speaker 1: wouldn't say struggle with, but there were a process for
12:45
Speaker 1: some of them that didn't come as natural, Like Freedom
12:47
Speaker 1: came natural. That's the first take that you hear on
12:49
Speaker 1: the record for Freedom? Is that right? Yeah? Sung that
12:53
Speaker 1: straight down? That was just like, I don't know. That
12:56
Speaker 1: was one of those ones. I need you was like
12:58
Speaker 1: that too, not the first take, but like in the
13:01
Speaker 1: first three takes, I typically only want to do six
13:04
Speaker 1: takes at the most. Three is really my sweet spot.
13:10
Speaker 1: I don't like doing more than six takes. I feel
13:13
Speaker 1: like something misses, I'll have to labor over it in
13:16
Speaker 1: my mind for months. Adulthood was like that. Adulthood was
13:20
Speaker 1: the last one I finished because it was such a
13:22
Speaker 1: personal song for me, but it was covert at the
13:26
Speaker 1: same time. You know, it's KOI personal, but koy and
13:30
Speaker 1: just finding that tone and the spacing of it and
13:33
Speaker 1: the music already said so much. And then I'm also
13:36
Speaker 1: going in that song from singing in my falsetto to rapping,
13:40
Speaker 1: to go from these two vocal approaches and have it
13:44
Speaker 1: be connected in a way that feels organic and inevitable.
13:49
Speaker 1: It just took a lot of thought in thinking through.
13:51
Speaker 1: I love the way that that came out. Did you
13:54
Speaker 1: actually did you sing and rap in the same take? Yeah? Wow,
14:00
Speaker 1: Well that's not always the case. You know. I think
14:03
Speaker 1: about production quality more than I think about trying to
14:08
Speaker 1: preserve a take unless it's the live performance, live band
14:12
Speaker 1: type of album. I don't typically try to perform to
14:15
Speaker 1: take unless that's what's best for the take. Like Boyhood.
14:18
Speaker 1: You mentioned Boyhood earlier. Boyhood The production style for that
14:23
Speaker 1: is not as a performance. It's it's more about this
14:27
Speaker 1: is a produced rap record, an impressionistic rap record, whereas
14:32
Speaker 1: a song like Cry, that's a performance that's on stage
14:40
Speaker 1: with the guitar and we just sing that down with
14:43
Speaker 1: the band. I remember we we played that when in
14:45
Speaker 1: the band band was playing. Steve Jordan was on the drums,
14:48
Speaker 1: incredible Steve Jordan playing and he was doing this thing
14:53
Speaker 1: and he started to scream. He said, oh, he started
14:58
Speaker 1: to scream when he found the right pocket. He was like,
15:02
Speaker 1: this is gonna be the take. You gotta this, this,
15:04
Speaker 1: this is this is it. You gotta record, you gotta record,
15:07
Speaker 1: you know, we record everything. And he he's like, you
15:09
Speaker 1: gotta record. This is gonna be the take, and everybody
15:13
Speaker 1: says that, but when he says it, I know it's true.
15:15
Speaker 1: He's got a gift for that. So Steve was locked
15:18
Speaker 1: in and everybody just locked in at the same time.
15:23
Speaker 1: And when it's like that, you just gotta hit it.
15:25
Speaker 1: You gotta hit you gotta make it, make it happen, baby,
15:27
Speaker 1: come on, sing it sing. It was that great guitar
15:32
Speaker 1: solo on the same take too. Yeah, that's Robert Randolph
15:36
Speaker 1: Robert Randolph is an incredible sacred pedal steel musician, obviously
15:41
Speaker 1: of world renowned. People who know about his music know
15:45
Speaker 1: that he's one of the kings of that style. He
15:48
Speaker 1: just he knows how to do what he's doing, so
15:51
Speaker 1: you just let him have it. It's really more about
15:54
Speaker 1: finding the pocket, the space where I wanted to put it.
15:59
Speaker 1: Tell me about writing that song, because it seems one
16:01
Speaker 1: of the most plaintiff and most kind of emotionally open
16:07
Speaker 1: songs on the record, that right there that I felt
16:30
Speaker 1: that in my soul. I felt that piano riff bow
16:35
Speaker 1: the weeny. I felt that, and I didn't know what
16:39
Speaker 1: I wanted to say, but I felt that. One day,
16:42
Speaker 1: I sat and I played that and I put it
16:44
Speaker 1: on loop and I just listened to it and we
16:48
Speaker 1: listened to it, and I called my friend Steve McEwen,
16:52
Speaker 1: and then he came over and we listened to it,
16:54
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want to say something with this,
16:58
Speaker 1: and I'm just trying to find the words, and I
16:59
Speaker 1: just started singing, which you know, sometimes ends up being
17:04
Speaker 1: a song, even if it starts out it's just mumbles
17:06
Speaker 1: or just turn into what I really want to say.
17:11
Speaker 1: It's in there somewhere and I just started cry cry.
17:19
Speaker 1: I just said, I just want to like cry, cry cry.
17:25
Speaker 1: You know, I started singing. I said I want to cry.
17:28
Speaker 1: But then he's like, that's that's what you want to say.
17:33
Speaker 1: It came out the chorus at least that kind of cry,
17:37
Speaker 1: cry cry. And then when when Nat was there and
17:41
Speaker 1: that was clear, and this when both of those things
17:45
Speaker 1: came together, the song just came out. We just wrote
17:48
Speaker 1: it that day, but it was I had to call Steve.
17:51
Speaker 1: Sometimes you gotta call a friend to kind of put
17:53
Speaker 1: the mirror up to yourself and you know, this is
17:57
Speaker 1: this is what you're saying. Can you see it more clearly? Now?
18:01
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, I got you. We're gonna take a
18:04
Speaker 1: quick break, but we'll be right back with more from
18:06
Speaker 1: John Batiste. We're back with Bruce Hellam's conversation with John Batiste.
18:16
Speaker 1: So you said you didn't take being musician seriously until
18:20
Speaker 1: you're around fifteen and started thinking of yourself as one.
18:23
Speaker 1: But then you put your first album out when you
18:26
Speaker 1: were seventeen. What flipped for you? What changed? I gotta
18:30
Speaker 1: give a lot of credit to seeing my peers who
18:34
Speaker 1: were doing it and also having mentorship from people who
18:39
Speaker 1: saw something in me that I didn't see it myself.
18:42
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking about peers of mine, like Sullivan Fortner,
18:46
Speaker 1: who wasn't a professional musician at the time, but I
18:48
Speaker 1: remember him playing the organ in church. I saw a
18:54
Speaker 1: clip of him as this whiz kid on public access television.
18:57
Speaker 1: He was playing the organ and the church at four
18:59
Speaker 1: years old, and he was the quiet, direct, incredible musician.
19:02
Speaker 1: We ended up going to school together. We practiced together
19:05
Speaker 1: for hours and hours at a time, you know, just
19:07
Speaker 1: seeing him somebody who was at the level where people
19:12
Speaker 1: were telling me I'm at this level and then I
19:13
Speaker 1: see this kid who's my age and then oh wow.
19:15
Speaker 1: Or seeing somebody like Troy Andrews trombone Shorty, who was
19:19
Speaker 1: out there touring when he was four years old. And
19:24
Speaker 1: then he came to me on the courtyard in high school.
19:27
Speaker 1: I was fourteen at the time, and he says, let's
19:29
Speaker 1: start a band together, you and I and we started
19:32
Speaker 1: playing at the Maple Leaf Bar, the historic bar on
19:34
Speaker 1: Oak Street. He's like fifteen to sixteen, fourteen, and we're
19:38
Speaker 1: playing in this club every week this New Orleans. So
19:42
Speaker 1: it's not an abnormal thing, but you know, you got
19:44
Speaker 1: this band led by these two fourteen year olds in
19:47
Speaker 1: a barroom on Wednesday nights after school, and just seeing
19:51
Speaker 1: him do that, and recording his first album as a leader,
19:55
Speaker 1: and me helping him kind of put that together, and
19:57
Speaker 1: us being these brothers at this time where you know,
20:00
Speaker 1: we're both trying to put this show together and lead
20:03
Speaker 1: this band, which, by the way, is the band that
20:06
Speaker 1: he still leads today, Orleans Avenue. That was the band
20:09
Speaker 1: that we started in high school before I went to Juilliard.
20:11
Speaker 1: So seeing that and experiencing that and saying, you know,
20:15
Speaker 1: this is really a special thing. This isn't just a
20:18
Speaker 1: part of something I love to do with my dad
20:21
Speaker 1: at home. And this isn't just those classical piano lessons
20:25
Speaker 1: that I'm using my ears to act like I'm site
20:27
Speaker 1: reading box, but I'm really just playing it by ear
20:30
Speaker 1: because I didn't know I had perfect pitch. Like, It's
20:32
Speaker 1: beyond just this activity or this thing that I do.
20:35
Speaker 1: It's this ability to reach people and have a voice
20:40
Speaker 1: and have a real impact in the community and in
20:43
Speaker 1: the world. So something about the epicness of it struck
20:46
Speaker 1: me at that time, seeing those guys who were my
20:50
Speaker 1: age doing things that I thought were really cool, and
20:53
Speaker 1: then having an Alvin Baptiste in my life who was
20:56
Speaker 1: a mentor like no other, who would tell me things
21:00
Speaker 1: about his time hanging with John Coltrane or his time
21:04
Speaker 1: talking Onette Coleman about the meaning of life and music
21:07
Speaker 1: being an allegory, a tonal allegory for life, and how
21:10
Speaker 1: that implies free jazz and avant garde music, which he
21:14
Speaker 1: played and it was completely alienating to most of the audience,
21:18
Speaker 1: but he was so passionate about it, and he would
21:21
Speaker 1: just share these records with me and make me do
21:24
Speaker 1: things musically that I was uncomfortable, to the point that
21:27
Speaker 1: I would grow so dramatically over the course of weeks
21:30
Speaker 1: of just being around him that by the time I
21:33
Speaker 1: was seventeen, I had reached this point where I had
21:36
Speaker 1: felt that was something worth documented. I really didn't know
21:39
Speaker 1: how to produce an album, so my father helped me,
21:42
Speaker 1: but I knew I wanted to do it, and he
21:44
Speaker 1: kind of showed me, and that was really my first production.
21:47
Speaker 1: When I was sixteen, I started writing the music for it,
21:50
Speaker 1: putting the bands together, doing dates around New Orleans on
21:53
Speaker 1: Frenchman Street, playing with all these older musicians who I admired,
21:57
Speaker 1: really calling them for the first time, nervous on the phone,
22:01
Speaker 1: saying will you come and playing my band and then
22:05
Speaker 1: playing the gig and showing them my music and they
22:06
Speaker 1: play and they're like, oh, this is great stuff. And
22:08
Speaker 1: then I'm playing and Donald Harrison Junior, who's another one
22:11
Speaker 1: of my mentors and teachers, playing on the album and really,
22:15
Speaker 1: you know, just saying like, yeah, I believe in this.
22:17
Speaker 1: I see what you're doing, Alvin Battist, I see what
22:19
Speaker 1: you're doing. This is really important. This is the stuff.
22:22
Speaker 1: This is the stuff, man, you have it. Do it. Okay,
22:26
Speaker 1: I'm interested. What did he push you to do on
22:28
Speaker 1: the piano that you said you weren't comfortable doing. It's
22:31
Speaker 1: funny it wasn't the piano. It was the clarinet. My
22:34
Speaker 1: last year of high school. Yeah, sixteen years old. He
22:37
Speaker 1: was a great clarinetist, incredible avant garde jazz, any style
22:41
Speaker 1: of music clarinetist, he could do it. He was an
22:45
Speaker 1: incredible teacher, philosopher. One day he just said, this year
22:49
Speaker 1: you're gonna play the clarinet. And the entire year he
22:53
Speaker 1: studied one on one with me, teaching me the clarinet.
22:57
Speaker 1: And this is not the saxophone. This is not the
23:01
Speaker 1: instrument that you know you consider when you're a sixteen
23:05
Speaker 1: year old high school to be the instrument that you
23:07
Speaker 1: want to study. But he's obviously one of your heroes.
23:12
Speaker 1: So I did it, and it was one of the
23:14
Speaker 1: most important things I ever did, because he was trying
23:19
Speaker 1: to show me that music and your ability, your talent,
23:25
Speaker 1: the innate thing that you have within you can be
23:28
Speaker 1: applied to anything. It doesn't have to just fit the
23:33
Speaker 1: thing that you know you're capable of doing today. And
23:36
Speaker 1: that's why I don't believe in limitations of genre or
23:39
Speaker 1: limitations of creativity in any way. If you're good at
23:42
Speaker 1: this thing, then you can apply that same spark to
23:45
Speaker 1: something else, if you figure out the code of how
23:47
Speaker 1: you can break into that space, into that world of
23:51
Speaker 1: creativity in this arena. So it was an incredible lesson
23:57
Speaker 1: because it wasn't about me becoming the greatest clarinet player
24:00
Speaker 1: in the world. I still play on my records. I
24:03
Speaker 1: played on We Are, played twelve instruments on We Are.
24:05
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have played so many instruments on Who we
24:07
Speaker 1: Are had I thought of myself off as just a
24:09
Speaker 1: pianist just a jazz musician, just this guy from New Orleans.
24:14
Speaker 1: If I limit myself in that way, I won't make
24:18
Speaker 1: who we are. I won't be able to be what
24:20
Speaker 1: it is that I am in the world today. So
24:22
Speaker 1: you got to break the limitations in your mind. And
24:25
Speaker 1: that was an incredible way that he kind of planted
24:27
Speaker 1: that seed. That's interesting because when I was listening many
24:31
Speaker 1: many times to the record, it occurred to me, this
24:34
Speaker 1: is an album actually about music. It's made of music,
24:38
Speaker 1: but there's so many references to music that you talk
24:41
Speaker 1: about your Alto Sacks when you're a kid. You mentioned
24:45
Speaker 1: Obama singing Amazing Grace in one of the songs. Yes, yes,
24:49
Speaker 1: I remember. You had a quote once that you said,
24:52
Speaker 1: the world mostly sees music as entertainment, but it's much
24:55
Speaker 1: more than that. So did your ideas about music change
24:58
Speaker 1: while you made this record. Well, I've had these ideas
25:02
Speaker 1: about music, and just really the public is coming into
25:05
Speaker 1: the consciousness about these ideas I call social music. Fact
25:09
Speaker 1: the album that I put out in twenty thirteen is
25:11
Speaker 1: called social music. And that was kind of when those
25:14
Speaker 1: ideas really became very clearly codified in my mind and
25:19
Speaker 1: I could articulate them and I could speak about them.
25:22
Speaker 1: This was like twenty twenty thirteen, and around that time,
25:26
Speaker 1: the name of my band that I was touring with
25:29
Speaker 1: and knowledge the house band on the Late Show with
25:32
Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert to Stay Human band Stay Human. That's when
25:35
Speaker 1: the band name changed to Stay Human. I just had
25:38
Speaker 1: a very clear philosophical awakening about what my understanding of
25:43
Speaker 1: music was at this time when I was coming down
25:46
Speaker 1: from Juilliard, playing in the subways, playing in the streets
25:49
Speaker 1: of New York City, and just really kind of figure
25:51
Speaker 1: it out. Social music, What does that mean in the
25:56
Speaker 1: twenty first century? What are these proto forms of music
26:00
Speaker 1: before entertainment? How they connected to globalization and the connectivity
26:04
Speaker 1: of culture now and the internet in a way that
26:07
Speaker 1: we've all become so enmeshed with each other and have
26:11
Speaker 1: always been, but it's just been more emboldened by technological advancement.
26:15
Speaker 1: How do I represent that as a musician? Social music?
26:18
Speaker 1: So this is a ten year plus concept. It's just
26:22
Speaker 1: now I've been able to really make the album that
26:25
Speaker 1: can reach to people and connect that concept to the
26:29
Speaker 1: greater public. But social music and we are, you know,
26:32
Speaker 1: it's almost like we are is the same conceptual definition
26:38
Speaker 1: as what social music was, except it's evolved and gotten better.
26:42
Speaker 1: As you're talking, it makes sense to me. And you said,
26:46
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to be bound by being
26:48
Speaker 1: just a New Orleans musician, but that city is one
26:51
Speaker 1: of the few places left where music is played in
26:55
Speaker 1: a lot of different social environments. That's right for most
27:00
Speaker 1: people now, I guess, other than the national anthem, there's
27:03
Speaker 1: not too many social occasions for music or people go
27:08
Speaker 1: to clubs to dance or whatever. And you've always tried
27:11
Speaker 1: to do that. You did that with my New York
27:14
Speaker 1: You played on subways, and when you tell people, oh,
27:16
Speaker 1: he did an album on the subway, they think, oh,
27:19
Speaker 1: you got a subway card. You miked it up. It's like, no, no, no,
27:24
Speaker 1: there are people there playing. And then you also you
27:27
Speaker 1: were in my neighborhood in Brooklyn during the George Floyd
27:30
Speaker 1: protests and you kind of brought music to those protests.
27:35
Speaker 1: So you seem very interested in putting music in different
27:39
Speaker 1: social environments. Tell me first, what was it like when
27:43
Speaker 1: you started playing at the George Floyd protests in Brooklyn?
27:47
Speaker 1: What was that like for you? How did that feel electric? Historic?
27:53
Speaker 1: A reckoning? It felt as if there was a collective
27:58
Speaker 1: consciousness that was focused on the same thing in a
28:02
Speaker 1: rare moment, in a tragic moment, but still very poignant
28:08
Speaker 1: to see all of these voices rise up to speak
28:13
Speaker 1: to the same thing. In contrast to the division that
28:17
Speaker 1: we were seeing and still seeing in the political sphere,
28:22
Speaker 1: there was a unity that I hadn't seen or felt,
28:27
Speaker 1: And there was also a toxicity to what I was
28:31
Speaker 1: seeing on news media and the presentation of these moments.
28:36
Speaker 1: Even across the world, there were so many moments of protests,
28:39
Speaker 1: it felt unified globally. At the same time, it was
28:43
Speaker 1: the synchronicity that I felt it needed, an injection of
28:47
Speaker 1: hope that I think about music being the real universal
28:52
Speaker 1: force of that. I was just seeing people save their
28:55
Speaker 1: destroying thing, police of battling with citizens, and all of
28:58
Speaker 1: this violence and all of this rage, and I just
29:01
Speaker 1: felt that it was such a beautiful moment of synchronicity
29:04
Speaker 1: that if someone with a voice with a platform were
29:08
Speaker 1: to rise up and to represent the universality and the
29:12
Speaker 1: beauty of this moment through a musical expression, that would
29:16
Speaker 1: be very important. That's important to see. From talking to
29:19
Speaker 1: people before he passed away, like Congressman John Lewis in
29:22
Speaker 1: the way he would express the feeling of when they
29:25
Speaker 1: were on the bus in the city ins and they
29:27
Speaker 1: would break out into song in the midst of this
29:30
Speaker 1: pandemonium and incredible duress of spirit being crushed, they would
29:36
Speaker 1: break out in the song and it would be this
29:38
Speaker 1: incredible moment of healing and a bob for everyone who
29:42
Speaker 1: was there, and also a reckoning of truth to show
29:45
Speaker 1: you these are human beings. I didn't even have to think.
29:47
Speaker 1: It was just, Oh, this is what social music is about.
29:50
Speaker 1: This is what I am saying I represent for all
29:54
Speaker 1: these years, and what I believe and I feel to
29:57
Speaker 1: my core is the purpose of music in society. And
30:00
Speaker 1: moments like this, I literally put on my coat and
30:03
Speaker 1: went out the door and called my band and called musicians,
30:07
Speaker 1: and because I'm blessed to have a platform and to
30:09
Speaker 1: be on telligence all these things that I've been blessed
30:11
Speaker 1: with in my career, it was picked up in so
30:14
Speaker 1: many ways by many people, and people saw it. It
30:17
Speaker 1: really impacted a lot of people. But it's not about me.
30:21
Speaker 1: That's just what the music is. That's the truth of
30:23
Speaker 1: the music. It also has a galvanizing quality that can
30:28
Speaker 1: connect people and ideas and can take emotion and transmutate
30:33
Speaker 1: emotion to things that we don't even know but the
30:38
Speaker 1: comes from. And John Lewis would always talk about that
30:41
Speaker 1: kind of solution based approach to dealing with the rest
30:45
Speaker 1: of our times and the inner turmoil that comes with
30:49
Speaker 1: that heaviness that we deal with. You're reminding me that
30:53
Speaker 1: I was thinking back to the clip of Obama that
30:56
Speaker 1: you mentioned in your album when he was singing Amazing Grace.
31:00
Speaker 1: It was literally at a point that he'd kind of
31:02
Speaker 1: run out of things to say, or he didn't know
31:05
Speaker 1: he was a little he was overcome. It's like quite
31:08
Speaker 1: a moment for him. I thought, Man, he listened to
31:11
Speaker 1: the album, and this is probably one of the greatest
31:15
Speaker 1: honors of my life, him reaching out and giving me
31:19
Speaker 1: his thoughts on the album and just telling me that
31:23
Speaker 1: this album is an important piece of American culture and
31:28
Speaker 1: music culture. So to have that reference being the album
31:35
Speaker 1: of him singing an Amazing Grace at that church, what
31:38
Speaker 1: that means, what this album is in the wake of
31:41
Speaker 1: what it represents in the world today, what it represents
31:44
Speaker 1: for me personally as a coming of age thirty three
31:46
Speaker 1: years old, making this album and then for him to
31:50
Speaker 1: reach out full circle to tell me that I sat
31:54
Speaker 1: and listened to this album. It deserves all the accolades
31:57
Speaker 1: is receiving. This is an incredible expression of our identity
32:02
Speaker 1: and ideals as Americans, all these things that are embedded
32:05
Speaker 1: in the album. Right, it's not just music. It's album
32:08
Speaker 1: about music, yes, but it's what is the expression of
32:11
Speaker 1: music being used for at its highest and best use
32:14
Speaker 1: throughout all time. Wow, you're talking so much about social
32:19
Speaker 1: music and music in these different places with bringing people together.
32:25
Speaker 1: But you did it during the pandemic. Right, you wrote
32:28
Speaker 1: this mainly in twenty nineteen. What was it like when
32:32
Speaker 1: you were writing some of these songs and creating some
32:35
Speaker 1: of this music. Were you imagining different environments? I know,
32:39
Speaker 1: I think the song I Need You, you said, was
32:41
Speaker 1: about the the Chitland circuit. Did each song have a
32:44
Speaker 1: kind of social place for you in your brain? Yeah?
32:48
Speaker 1: You know that baseline? Sure don't. Don't. You heard that
32:55
Speaker 1: song and you hear a history when you hit that
32:59
Speaker 1: baseline ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.
33:03
Speaker 1: That that baseline comes with lineage. Uh, It's it's something
33:09
Speaker 1: special about taking things and making them anew by combining
33:17
Speaker 1: them with other things that they maybe haven't met yet
33:22
Speaker 1: or haven't met in that way, and then also taking
33:26
Speaker 1: those elements of things that mean something more and more
33:31
Speaker 1: as time progresses, whether it's going into the past and
33:36
Speaker 1: finding those things are things that are born today, and
33:40
Speaker 1: finding a place for those textures and those colors and
33:45
Speaker 1: those sounds and rhythms and melodies and putting them in
33:49
Speaker 1: a new context. It's endless. It's incredibly rewarding to be
33:54
Speaker 1: able to do that, even if nobody hears it. A
33:57
Speaker 1: song like I Need You, that being my first number
33:59
Speaker 1: one radio song ever, you know, shocking. I was not
34:04
Speaker 1: thinking about that when I was making that song. I
34:07
Speaker 1: was not thinking about that song. Not only just seeing
34:10
Speaker 1: the video the views a mind blowing for me, staggering
34:14
Speaker 1: to see that, but to see folks make videos of
34:18
Speaker 1: themselfs dancing, doing their own dance routines to the song
34:24
Speaker 1: and sending it to me and posting it online. All
34:27
Speaker 1: these things like that for what it represents mind blowing.
34:32
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite video that someone is sent
34:34
Speaker 1: in the favorite thing that I remember over the pandemic,
34:38
Speaker 1: we did these dance parties. It's dance gatherings, really host
34:42
Speaker 1: these things online and folks from all over the world
34:45
Speaker 1: were tune in. Would go online. I would go on
34:47
Speaker 1: live and I would dance with people playing the song,
34:52
Speaker 1: playing other songs, just for hours at a time, two
34:56
Speaker 1: to three hours, dancing on Sundays, and people would tune in.
35:00
Speaker 1: I would add them to the screen and we would
35:02
Speaker 1: dance together for a song. I remember there was a
35:05
Speaker 1: moment that was somebody in Brazil. Then there was somebody
35:08
Speaker 1: who would in Seattle or San Francisco, and then there
35:12
Speaker 1: was somebody who was dancing in London or something, and
35:16
Speaker 1: it was just incredible, just like there were like dancing
35:20
Speaker 1: outside on the balcony it was nighttime, and then the
35:23
Speaker 1: other people dancing outside in the car, They're like, oh,
35:26
Speaker 1: he added us to the live and they stopped the
35:28
Speaker 1: car on the side of the road, jumped out. Somebody's
35:31
Speaker 1: holding the phone and they would taking turns. It's just
35:33
Speaker 1: such a beautiful expression in a moment where all we
35:38
Speaker 1: see is this kind of darkness and people are talking
35:41
Speaker 1: about isolation, and we got to hold onto our humanity
35:44
Speaker 1: and not let the emotions that can overwhelm us take
35:48
Speaker 1: our humanity and strip it away. We'll be right back
35:51
Speaker 1: with more from John Batiste. After a quick break, we're
35:59
Speaker 1: back with the rest of Bruce Hedlum's conversation with John Batiste.
36:02
Speaker 1: You were talking about trying to put together, you know,
36:05
Speaker 1: that little bassline with different kinds of music. It makes
36:09
Speaker 1: me think that, you know, the New Orleans piano player
36:13
Speaker 1: that you remind me of a lot is James Booker.
36:17
Speaker 1: Was he an influence on you, you know, because he
36:19
Speaker 1: was a guy who brought in classical elements and when
36:22
Speaker 1: he starts playing, you're never sure where it's gonna go.
36:25
Speaker 1: And that's a bit the same with you. Well, James
36:27
Speaker 1: Booker was somebody who was an unsung genius. He was
36:31
Speaker 1: a pianist who played at the Maple Leaf where Troy
36:34
Speaker 1: and I played when we were in high school. His
36:36
Speaker 1: piano was in the corner at the maple Leaf. Is
36:39
Speaker 1: presence was around even before I realized how big an
36:43
Speaker 1: influence he would be. This Maple Leaf bar is where
36:45
Speaker 1: he recorded some of his live albums. Spider on the Keys,
36:49
Speaker 1: which was recorded at the Maple Leaf, was an album.
36:51
Speaker 1: When I started playing at the Maple Leaf with Troy,
36:54
Speaker 1: my dad gave me this record and Spider on the
36:57
Speaker 1: Keys he played it for me. He's like, man, just
36:59
Speaker 1: listen to this cat. And I started listening to it,
37:01
Speaker 1: and I started kind of stealing things. You know, he
37:03
Speaker 1: had this that kind of you know, that little little
37:20
Speaker 1: love feeling to his plan. I started copying that and
37:23
Speaker 1: all a lot of stuff I would cop just take
37:25
Speaker 1: and and absorb. And then folks started telling me around
37:30
Speaker 1: the town. You know the novels are different musicians who
37:33
Speaker 1: I admired, looked up to, and uh, they knew Booker.
37:36
Speaker 1: It would be like, man, you're like little Booker. I'm
37:39
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen at the time. They were like, man, you
37:41
Speaker 1: got you got the hands like too. And then they're like, man,
37:43
Speaker 1: you look like I had a few musicians over the
37:47
Speaker 1: years that seems there's a magnetism from them being in
37:53
Speaker 1: the world and not being here anymore, and then me
37:56
Speaker 1: being here, and there's a magnetism to their art and
37:58
Speaker 1: the things they left behind. The Loneus Monk was also
38:01
Speaker 1: like that too. When I was nineteen, I listened to
38:04
Speaker 1: him exclusively for almost a year and it was just something.
38:07
Speaker 1: It was a magnetism to his music and his piano playing.
38:10
Speaker 1: There's like a handful of musicians like that where it
38:13
Speaker 1: feels like something is pulling me toward their work. Are
38:17
Speaker 1: there a lot of New Orleans pianists in that list
38:21
Speaker 1: for you? Like, are you the kind of guy that
38:23
Speaker 1: we would hear like do we hear any Professor long
38:26
Speaker 1: Hair in the way you play? Or do we hear
38:29
Speaker 1: like Jack Dupree or any of these kind of guys. Yeah,
38:32
Speaker 1: I think there's a natural bond to all of the
38:36
Speaker 1: musicians who come from the community. You don't have to
38:39
Speaker 1: study them to have that in your plane well book.
38:42
Speaker 1: It was an added level. It was an added kindredness
38:46
Speaker 1: that whether he was from New Orleans or I was
38:48
Speaker 1: from New Orleans or not, whether he was from Omaha
38:50
Speaker 1: and I was from Japan, there's a kindredness to his
38:54
Speaker 1: approach to music that's more genetic, it's more innate. Nina
38:57
Speaker 1: Simone is another one. It's incredible what happens when I
39:01
Speaker 1: listen to them. It's almost like when I'm listening to
39:03
Speaker 1: them on the rector, because I can become them, or
39:07
Speaker 1: it I can be in them mind. It's a really
39:10
Speaker 1: weird feeling that I don't know how to describe other
39:13
Speaker 1: than that, But yeah, Professor long Hair was he I
39:17
Speaker 1: wouldn't say, he's on that list for me in terms
39:19
Speaker 1: of that feeling, But as far as influential figures, him
39:22
Speaker 1: and Lewis Armstrong were probably the two most mythological figures
39:27
Speaker 1: from hometown who I knew before I even knew. Yeah,
39:30
Speaker 1: you know, you hear every Martyr. I remember vividly. It
39:34
Speaker 1: was like a lightning ball struck me when I heard
39:37
Speaker 1: the Marty gral Ad come on TV, and it was
39:41
Speaker 1: every year they would play a Marty gar Ad for
39:44
Speaker 1: a few years. When I was a kid of Big
39:46
Speaker 1: Chief and that's a professor long hair standard and this
39:49
Speaker 1: piano like the that when that kid, oh, and then
39:58
Speaker 1: when he went like that moment, I was like, what
40:04
Speaker 1: is that? And I wasn't even really thinking about a
40:07
Speaker 1: musician perspective for myself. I wasn't thinking to myself as
40:10
Speaker 1: a musician at the time at all. I wasn't trying
40:12
Speaker 1: to be a musician. It was just something about that
40:15
Speaker 1: that was just so communicative. It sounded like a party
40:19
Speaker 1: in second line in Marty Row and Walls. It sounded
40:22
Speaker 1: like so much without having any words attached to it,
40:25
Speaker 1: just that liberal Lanklin or I just knew exactly what
40:28
Speaker 1: he meant, what did you hear in Nina Simone's playing
40:33
Speaker 1: that grabbed you? Are there parts of her technique and
40:36
Speaker 1: what you do well, Her approach to music, her wanted
40:42
Speaker 1: to be a classical pianist and not being able to
40:45
Speaker 1: really achieve that dream. But her synthesis of classical and
40:49
Speaker 1: blues and soul and gospel and jazz, all of these
40:54
Speaker 1: different things she's connected the dots with and her plan
40:58
Speaker 1: really connected with me and my approach naturally, just based
41:01
Speaker 1: upon how I think about music and how I play.
41:04
Speaker 1: But what really connected me most with her as her voice.
41:07
Speaker 1: When I started to really sing and hear her voice
41:09
Speaker 1: in my voice, there would be moments where it would
41:12
Speaker 1: sound like the same person in her essence. Watching her
41:15
Speaker 1: perform I remember I watched some of her live performances
41:19
Speaker 1: when I was in college. I was about to do
41:23
Speaker 1: some performances in Central Park I think it was maybe
41:26
Speaker 1: a Mount Morris Park, and there was some footage that's
41:31
Speaker 1: now actually been made into a documentary. There was a
41:34
Speaker 1: friend of mine who had these archives or tapes. I
41:36
Speaker 1: don't even know how he got him, but he showed
41:37
Speaker 1: me that performance that just struck me. I was like,
41:40
Speaker 1: oh wow, in her voice, her tone, and there's a
41:44
Speaker 1: relationship in her tone, in the way she plays the piano,
41:47
Speaker 1: in her essence that really is connected to how I
41:51
Speaker 1: feel about music. I've heard you say that your piano
41:54
Speaker 1: playing was influenced a lot by Hendrix. Is that true? Yeah?
41:58
Speaker 1: How do you translate kind of what he did to
42:01
Speaker 1: the piano? That fascinates me if you listen to him.
42:05
Speaker 1: He was really a blues musician if you want to
42:08
Speaker 1: put him in any genre, which he's not really possible
42:10
Speaker 1: to put him in a genre. He was more of
42:12
Speaker 1: a blues musician and a rock and roller. And when
42:16
Speaker 1: I think about blues and R and B, that's really
42:19
Speaker 1: what rock and roll actually was. Chuck Berry, little Richard Fast, Domino,
42:27
Speaker 1: these black guys from the South created this rock and
42:32
Speaker 1: roll genre that you know, people who are now thinking
42:36
Speaker 1: about rock and roll, it is not always connected to that.
42:39
Speaker 1: And Jimmy was really the most clear connector of those
42:46
Speaker 1: two errors. And it influences me because I come from
42:51
Speaker 1: these sounds that are just rooted in the same stuff,
42:55
Speaker 1: rooted in the dirt. It's rooted in the blues and
42:58
Speaker 1: gospel and R and being sold. And how do you
43:01
Speaker 1: make that into a very contemporary modern expression through your instrument,
43:07
Speaker 1: not through the style of music you make, the type
43:09
Speaker 1: of album you make, but just through your plan. How
43:12
Speaker 1: do you express that? And one of his great quotes
43:15
Speaker 1: he was talking about I don't play the guitar. I
43:17
Speaker 1: played to amplify it, or to amplify it was an invention.
43:21
Speaker 1: It was a technological advancement of the time. And you
43:25
Speaker 1: know a lot of people play loud and it's brash
43:29
Speaker 1: and it's harsh on the ears, and it's just to
43:31
Speaker 1: be loud. But he said he would play loud to
43:36
Speaker 1: go deeply into the souls of people. And there was
43:41
Speaker 1: just a philosophical way he looked at music in his
43:44
Speaker 1: instrument and looked at how to make it contemporary while
43:49
Speaker 1: still being rooted in all the things that he organically
43:52
Speaker 1: came from. That is an influence for me in a
43:55
Speaker 1: way that I approached the piano and the way that
43:57
Speaker 1: I approach the piano in my songwriting and in my performance.
44:03
Speaker 1: I mean, I know what you mean philosophically, but how
44:06
Speaker 1: do you he says, he's playing the amplifier. When you
44:09
Speaker 1: sit down at the keyboard, are you playing the action?
44:12
Speaker 1: Are you thinking of it in a different way? My
44:15
Speaker 1: playing fits in all different contexts, which is a rare thing.
44:20
Speaker 1: Finding a way to be fully the same as you
44:25
Speaker 1: always are in every context is the first step of
44:28
Speaker 1: what I've done and still continue to develop with my style.
44:33
Speaker 1: And that's something that is not as obvious as you know.
44:36
Speaker 1: And I'm playing now through an amplifier, but takes a
44:40
Speaker 1: lot of thought and ingenuity to really come up with
44:44
Speaker 1: a style that doesn't sound like you're changing hats or
44:48
Speaker 1: you're becoming another musician every time you play in another context.
44:52
Speaker 1: And that was the first real tangible innovation. If you
44:57
Speaker 1: listen to my records, if you listen to my performances,
44:59
Speaker 1: like go listen to me playing with my late friend,
45:03
Speaker 1: the incredible Mac Miller on his last television performance on
45:06
Speaker 1: The Late Show when we did his song Ladders. You know,
45:10
Speaker 1: listen to me there, and then listen to me playing
45:12
Speaker 1: with Willie Nelson, and then listen to me playing just
45:16
Speaker 1: it's a good study, you know. I always trying to
45:19
Speaker 1: do this with my friends, my fellow bandmates. Try to
45:23
Speaker 1: give them a blindfold test and ask them who's that
45:26
Speaker 1: on piano, and they always figure it out. And that
45:28
Speaker 1: gives me great joy because I've spent a lot of
45:30
Speaker 1: time to find that sound. Right now, that's very interesting.
45:36
Speaker 1: There's a lot of Curtis Mayfield on this record. I think,
45:39
Speaker 1: you know, I can hear it in to tell the
45:40
Speaker 1: truth and adulthood and show me the way particularly were
45:44
Speaker 1: you always a fan? Well, that's interesting. I think that
45:49
Speaker 1: the combination of singing in the falsetto register and singing
45:54
Speaker 1: socially conscious music is something that connects to Curtis because
46:00
Speaker 1: he's really one of the most prominent proponents of that approach.
46:06
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking of Curtis when I was making in
46:09
Speaker 1: the album, although the comparison is the highest honor that
46:13
Speaker 1: I could ever hear, because knowing what he represented in
46:16
Speaker 1: his time and being a fan of his just generally
46:19
Speaker 1: as a fan of music, I really do take that
46:22
Speaker 1: as a high compliment and full transparency. I wasn't trying
46:26
Speaker 1: to do that. I was more again trying to explore
46:31
Speaker 1: my voice and figure out what the best way to
46:36
Speaker 1: deliver the messages honestly of each song would be. And
46:42
Speaker 1: I think that that's a really cool thing that it
46:46
Speaker 1: resonates with you in the space that Curtis resonates with you,
46:49
Speaker 1: because in a sense, that's what I was trying to do,
46:53
Speaker 1: although not as directly. We haven't even mentioned that you
46:57
Speaker 1: want an oscar for the soundtrack to Soul. And part
47:01
Speaker 1: of that soundtrack was you did a great cover of
47:04
Speaker 1: It's all Right, his great song with the impressions. What
47:07
Speaker 1: was that like doing that song? Man? And I loved it.
47:11
Speaker 1: I was crying. I was in tears. I was in
47:14
Speaker 1: tears because it was just such a heavy time and
47:17
Speaker 1: every time I listened to the playback, it really brought
47:20
Speaker 1: me tears of joy. I don't know why. I still
47:23
Speaker 1: don't know why. And I had the same experience. You know,
47:26
Speaker 1: my collaborator on the film creative the movie Soul, and
47:30
Speaker 1: the genius behind a lot of Pixar films, Pete Doctor,
47:34
Speaker 1: he called me one day and he said he had
47:36
Speaker 1: the same experience listening to the work tape. He was
47:39
Speaker 1: crying and didn't know why. He was in tears, and
47:40
Speaker 1: I was just so moves because and I didn't tell
47:43
Speaker 1: him this at the time, but I revealed to you
47:45
Speaker 1: that I was. I had the same experience with the recording.
47:48
Speaker 1: I don't usually have that emotional connection like that to
47:51
Speaker 1: my recordings, but it was something about the you know,
47:54
Speaker 1: finishing the record during the pandemic and Curtis's song and
47:58
Speaker 1: just what he's sang in the song. When you wake
48:01
Speaker 1: up early in the morning feeling sad, like so many
48:04
Speaker 1: of us do, just hum a little soul and make
48:07
Speaker 1: life your goal, and surely something's got to come to you. See.
48:12
Speaker 1: It's all right that that part with those chords, this
48:25
Speaker 1: is harblin soul. Make life your goal and join us up.
48:32
Speaker 1: That's got to come to you, see it. It's all right,
48:38
Speaker 1: you know that what it just it hits you. Man.
48:43
Speaker 1: You know, I could go on and on about that song,
48:46
Speaker 1: but yeah, man, Now in that context, I was definitely
48:49
Speaker 1: thinking about Curtis and trying to uphold the essence of
48:55
Speaker 1: that song and the ethos of what he created, but
48:57
Speaker 1: make it my own and make it match the film
49:00
Speaker 1: and all that. So it was truly a special experience
49:03
Speaker 1: finding that balance. M Now, when you play these songs live,
49:08
Speaker 1: this is a more our pop oriented album and it's
49:12
Speaker 1: more produced in a way than some of your other work.
49:15
Speaker 1: And I guess I'm interested in how you balance your
49:18
Speaker 1: love of jazz improvisation or improvisation in general. That you
49:22
Speaker 1: came through jazz with this idea of kind of more
49:26
Speaker 1: formal compositions. How do you think about it? When you're
49:30
Speaker 1: playing these songs live, you supersede the expectations and you
49:34
Speaker 1: crush them with brilliance. You make that sound easy. Yeah,
49:40
Speaker 1: it's not easy. I mean I've almost fainted on stage
49:44
Speaker 1: just given them my all. We've done shows over the
49:46
Speaker 1: last year, you know, playing Austin City Limits. We did
49:49
Speaker 1: an incredible show. We did three hours long show that
49:54
Speaker 1: was broadcasting Austins litson. We did the festival that we did,
49:56
Speaker 1: all a lot of performances, less to do, two performances
50:01
Speaker 1: in Central Park, sixty thousand people performing these songs, performing
50:07
Speaker 1: the songs in different parts of the world, through the pandemic,
50:11
Speaker 1: somehow still making it happen. And man, every show, I'm
50:16
Speaker 1: just giving so much. I got the wardrobe change. Like
50:20
Speaker 1: in the tradition of James Brown as one of my
50:22
Speaker 1: patron saints of the live show, live experience, where it's
50:26
Speaker 1: just a revival. It feels like you're connected to something
50:32
Speaker 1: greater than yourself and you're in the audience and it's
50:35
Speaker 1: not about me. It's about that feeling prevailing. It's just
50:39
Speaker 1: about capturing the people, putting them in this space together
50:43
Speaker 1: and experiencing this vibration that is just transcended and if
50:48
Speaker 1: if you do that, they're not gonna be worry if
50:50
Speaker 1: you didn't do it exactly like the record, I'm interested
50:53
Speaker 1: in what you learned about tapping into that frequency, into
50:58
Speaker 1: getting that concert experience. Have you learned how to do
51:01
Speaker 1: that and how do you approach that well. You talk
51:04
Speaker 1: about this being my first kind of very produced pop album,
51:08
Speaker 1: and it really is. I say it's my first album
51:10
Speaker 1: many senses because my extensive history up to this point
51:15
Speaker 1: of doing completely independent album since the album I maybe
51:19
Speaker 1: when I was seventeen, and I love that because it
51:22
Speaker 1: allowed me to have fifteen years of being a live
51:25
Speaker 1: musician as a bandleader, and also the time before that
51:29
Speaker 1: when I was a kid in New Orleans playing in bands.
51:32
Speaker 1: So when it comes to a live show, I feel
51:35
Speaker 1: like I have multiple degrees in how to put on
51:37
Speaker 1: a live show. I also have a time in my
51:41
Speaker 1: life that I'm blessed to be on TV, which is
51:44
Speaker 1: incredible with the genius of Stephen Colbert. But that's also
51:48
Speaker 1: putting in perspective. For the last seven years, I haven't
51:51
Speaker 1: been able to tour, so when I'm ready to tour,
51:55
Speaker 1: and when I'm done with the show, I'm about to
51:59
Speaker 1: knock people's socks. So I'm about to blow their lights out.
52:02
Speaker 1: You have not seen the fullness of what it is
52:05
Speaker 1: that I'm about to bring to the stage. I am
52:08
Speaker 1: not worried about that part at all. That's the part
52:10
Speaker 1: that I feel like. It's like the that's the one
52:13
Speaker 1: two punch, like that's the second punch. That's the like bam,
52:18
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, we are ready. I am fully fully ready. Okay, Well,
52:23
Speaker 1: this album is. It's a great jab So thank you
52:26
Speaker 1: so much for talking. It's been just great. Let's get it.
52:29
Speaker 1: Thank you again, yeah baby. Thanks the John Patis for
52:35
Speaker 1: talking to us about making his new album. We Are
52:37
Speaker 1: and we hope he wins all eleven Grammys that he's
52:41
Speaker 1: up for. You can check out a playlist with all
52:43
Speaker 1: of our favorite Jompatis songs at broken Record podcast dot com.
52:47
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
52:50
Speaker 1: dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where we can find
52:53
Speaker 1: all of our new episodes. You can follow us on
52:55
Speaker 1: Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help
52:59
Speaker 1: from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Ben Taliday, Eric Sandler, and
53:03
Speaker 1: Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chaffey. Our executive
53:07
Speaker 1: producer is Miila Bell Broken Record. It's a production of
53:10
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others some Pushkin,
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Speaker 1: listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin
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Speaker 1: Plus on Apple Podcasts subscriptions, and please remember to share, rate,
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Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast. That a theme music's
53:31
Speaker 1: by the Great Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.