Jon Batiste

Arts Desk

When the world's your stage, can an album capture the feeling?

Nate Chinen

New albums by Jon Batiste and Louis Cato arrive with high expectations. Both — as their experience leading led the band at Stephen Colbert's The Late Show has proved — are stellar live performers.

Jon Batiste (center) performs at the 64th annual Grammy Awards on April 3, 2022. Batiste was nominated in 11 categories and took home five prizes, including album of the year.

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The Grammys make a clear statement: Sometimes feeling good is good enough

Ann Powers

The show, despite a delay caused by the pandemic and brief moments of seriousness, was mostly a highly professional, relentlessly energetic showcase for the pleasure of live music. Plus a few awards.

In <em>Soul, </em>Joe Gardner is a middle-school band teacher whose true passion is playing jazz<em>.</em> Musician Jon Batiste wrote original music and performed it for the Pixar film, which animated his fingers playing the piano.

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In 'Soul,' Jon Batiste's Music Helps Bring Pixar's First Black Lead To Life

Mandalit del Barco

Batiste is one of several real-life musicians who consulted on the new Pixar film, about a middle-school band teacher who ends up in a fantastical realm called The Great Before.

Arts Desk

Jazz Album of the Week: Rachael & Vilray, Songs Reminiscent of Tunes from the '30s and '40s

Matt Silver

January 6, 2019. Looking for some good old-fashioned fun? Here it is. Rachael Price has made a name for herself as lead vocalist of Lake Street Dive, the…

Arts Desk

Jon Batiste on TV, in the Community, and in Philadelphia

A supercharged jazz musician has entered the public eye in a huge way. Jon Batiste leads the house band on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He traveled…

Jon Batiste carries his melodica with him pretty much all the time. "I always have it," he says. "It's kind of like my murse — a man purse."

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A Very Jon Batiste Christmas

NPR Staff

The bandleader for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert has released a new album of "funkified" holiday classics. "I love remixing things and making them fit in a different context," he says.