ERIC DEGGANS, HOST:
On his new album, "Beethoven Blues," pianist, composer, singer Jon Batiste offers performances of new compositions and legendary works that blend lots of things - classical jazz and blues, improvisation and well-established melodies, like this version of "Fur Elise," one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions with a little of Batiste's special keyboard magic sprinkled throughout.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BATISTE'S "FUR ELISE - BATISTE")
DEGGANS: Jon Batiste has crafted an album packed with tracks like these, featuring just him on an acoustic piano, and he joins us now to talk about the project. Jon, thanks so much for coming on.
JON BATISTE: Hello. How you doing?
DEGGANS: I'm doing great. And, you know, what strikes me about this - jazz artists have been improvising with popular tunes for some time - I mean, you know, this can go back 100 years - but not so much with classical melodies. So what happens when you take something that's so precisely written like Beethoven and then riff on it?
BATISTE: Music has all these things that are innate within the sound, and it's a language that speaks more than words can say, but it's intangible. So with any form of music, I try to get beyond the technical and get to that space and really try to figure out how to get to the human aspect of it all. For me, Beethoven is the same as Kendrick Lamar or Duke Ellington or any form of music because it comes from that same well of human experience and expression. And once you find the heartbeat of something, that's where the opportunity for creative transformation lies.
DEGGANS: That's so interesting that you say that 'cause I think about how you play a piece like "Life Of Ludwig," where we even hear you making noises while you're playing. Like, the passion is brimming up in you so much, the emotion is brimming up in you so much, that you just have to let it out. You can't even hold it in.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BATISTE'S "LIFE OF LUDWIG")
BATISTE: You know something about the "Life Of Ludwig" - Ludwig Van Beethoven, you know - he's someone who couldn't keep the music from coming out as well. And I relate to him when you hear these stories of how he started to grow increasingly deaf. And in his late period, which some of his most ubiquitous work is found that you hear on this album, he's growing deaf, and he still finds a way to press his ears up against the wood of his piano to compose the illustrious "Seventh Symphony," or to compose "Ode To Joy," which is this transcendent, reverent and also epic, in all the ways, ode to humanity and to the creator and to creation and life itself. And to feel that while going through the turmoil that he was going through, It really does speak to the power of music and how if it's within you, you can't hold it back.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BATISTE'S "ODE TO JOYFUL")
DEGGANS: I think about the documentary that you were in, "American Symphony," where we saw that you still take lessons with this exacting teacher who drills you on how you even play the more formal versions of these classical songs. And I was wondering, did any of the pieces that we hear on this album sort of grow out of those practice sessions or the drilling that that teacher brought to your work?
BATISTE: I've always had great mentors. Every piece on the album "Beethoven Blues" is played and has been played for years in the way that it is rendered on the score, exact. That's the only way for me to transform something. When I'm thinking of any piece that I've transformed over the years, I have to learn the initial rendering of the piece and the logic of that. There's a logic to it that's very important to understand before you start to change things. But then it's like you're in conversation with the composer. Once you understand it, there's a beautiful transference. It's like an extend of a lineage. It's an extending of its ubiquity.
DEGGANS: That's really interesting and reminds me of another scene from "American Symphony," where we see you getting a little irritated at some of the press that suggests that because you're a, quote, "pop musician," you can't necessarily play in the classical world or dabble in the classical world or do things that could be considered a part of that world. And I wonder if this album is a little bit of a statement pushing back against that as well to avoid being pigeonholed.
BATISTE: Absolutely. This inclination that from these class struggles and these culture struggles that we have that makes music into a test - music is not a test. And what I think that challenges by approaching music in this way is it challenges people's notions of who can play what, who deserves to play what and what we value as high art, what we value as high culture. And ultimately, it speaks to what people we value.
DEGGANS: Yeah, I hear you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BATISTE'S "WALDSTEIN WOBBLE")
DEGGANS: Let's talk about another tune called "Waldstein Wobble."
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BATISTE'S "WALDSTEIN WOBBLE")
DEGGANS: As the piece goes on, we can hear that you've taken one of Beethoven's most challenging works, and you've made it even more challenging.
(LAUGHTER)
DEGGANS: So how did that come about? And did you realize what you were doing as you were pulling it together?
BATISTE: You know, I find that a lot of times I'm discovering the beauty of this work anew. And I find that you can never think you know a piece. Now, when I'm approaching an album, then what I'm doing is really thinking about, how do I take "Waldstein," this movement of this sonata, and how do I evoke the story of boogie-woogie and all of these forms of blues and blues piano styling - stomp, strides, rags - all of these styles that are just as musically difficult as the styles that we know in classical music? And I just wanted to have a moment to pay homage to that.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BATISTE'S "WALDSTEIN WOBBLE")
DEGGANS: "Beethoven Blues" - it's been out for about two weeks. It's already the No. 1 classical and classical crossover album on the Billboard charts. What's your sense about why it's hitting such a nerve for people?
BATISTE: It's like one of those things that is right there under our nose and we all want and we feel. It's like, I love these melodies, but they just don't feel like they need to be updated. It hasn't been updated. This has - doesn't connect to my life right now in a certain way as if I put on something that was made in the last 100 years or the last 50 years. And I think, to be able to do that effectively, I'm just grateful that I - you know, I had the supportive mentorship and the range of mentorship that I had to be able to pay homage to many different musical traditions accurately and to offer this to our world so that it can inspire us all to take this music...
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BATISTE'S "5TH SYMPHONY IN CONGO SQUARE")
BATISTE: ...That has been left here, This music that really is transformational and is through God, through these vessels of human beings - you know, Haydn, Mozart, Chopin, I mean, just every - Florence Price, James Reese Europe - I mean, just the range of what's there now in the public domain for us to extend and refine and to continue to learn from. I think everybody has yearned for that.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BATISTE'S "5TH SYMPHONY IN CONGO SQUARE")
DEGGANS: Grammy- and Oscar-winning composer and musician Jon Batiste. His latest album, "Beethoven Blues," is out now. You can also hear him perform the national anthem at the Super Bowl next year. Jon, thank you for joining us.
BATISTE: Thank you. It's been great. I'm so grateful to share.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BATISTE'S "5TH SYMPHONY IN CONGO SQUARE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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