Claude Debussy’s ‘Children’s Corner’ is a suite with six movements just for piano. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Alfred Cartot’s versions are amazing, but my favorite is Menininha Lobo’s. Her version was done when she was an old lady – and you can hear it. Jon Batiste Read Quote
Technology is something you have to embrace because technology is part of our generation. Digital natives, for instance, are people who grew up in a world that always had the Internet and who always had smartphones. Millennials aren’t too far behind: my generation of people, who were in the mix of the Internet when it first came out. Jon Batiste Read Quote
We played Carnegie Hall, and that was one time where I felt… Carnegie Hall as a legendary, very venerable place to perform. I’d never heard of anyone going into the Hall and kind of standing on the seats and playing throughout the aisles and having the audience stand on the seats. So when we did that in 2013, even for me it was a shock. Jon Batiste Read Quote
The thing about Spike Lee… that’s a deep experience to work with someone who is that intense and knows their vision that well. The character I play in ‘Red Hook Summer’ is super country and super loud. I suppose he is some version of myself. Jon Batiste Read Quote
I think it’s important for people to stay human and remember that genuine human connection is more fulfilling than anything that technology has to offer. We all have it within us, and music is something that can bring that out of us. Jon Batiste Read Quote
You can’t hate the person next to you when you’re laughing and dancing together. Jon Batiste Read Quote
I still consider myself to be introverted, but everyone has a side of themselves that is amplified. Performers have to learn to tap into that, even if it’s not natural. Jon Batiste Read Quote
Whatever I do with music, I try to make it align deeply with the values and principles of who I am and what I believe the purpose of my life is. Jon Batiste Read Quote
Early American music and early folk music, before the record became popular and before there were pop stars and before there were venues made to present music where people bought tickets, people played music in the community, and it was much more part of a fabric of everyday life. I call that music ‘root music.’ Jon Batiste Read Quote
In such a globally connected world, musicians now have the unique opportunity to express all of the cultural ‘mash ups’ we are experiencing these days. Akin to the blend of cultures that occurred in early 20th-century New Orleans that led to the birth of jazz, I believe that the world has reached a similar cultural turning point. Jon Batiste Read Quote
