Long before he became a bandleader, television celebrity and Grammy Award winner, Jon Batiste was a dedicated student of classical piano.
As a teenager in Metairie, Louisiana, he devoted Saturday mornings to classes at the home of his teacher, Ms. Shirley, where he practiced scales, arpeggios and works by composers such as Bach and Debussy.
“I was that type of student who left the books in the lobby and only picked them up again the next class,” confessed Batiste. “I didn’t practice at home. The beauty of the music only made sense to me later.”
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Now, Batiste, 38, is returning to his classical roots with an album called “Beethoven Blues.” He performs improvisations on masterpieces such as “Für Elise” and the Fifth Symphony, as well as Beethoven-inspired compositions such as “Dusklight Movement” and “Life of Ludwig”.
For Batiste, who is half at home in New York, this project has personal meaning. He takes him back to the Maple Leaf Bar and other stages in New Orleans, where, as a teenager, he began combining Chopin nocturnes and Bach inventions with his own compositions.
“This is my way of life,” he explained. “Living the music, exploring it and maintaining a constant dialogue with it and with the composers.”
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On a recent evening at New York’s Electric Lady Studios, Batiste smiled as he improvised on the piano some of his favorite classics, such as Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” and Chopin’s “Fantaisie-Impromptu.” He later turned his attention to Beethoven, incorporating elements of gospel and blues into the “Moonlight” Sonata. “That’s heavy, man,” he analyzed.
In an interview, Batiste reflected on his early years as a pianist, the influence of African rhythms on Beethoven and the elitism present in classical music. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: You were raised in a family known for New Orleans jazz. How did you start experimenting with classical music?
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A: At the age of 11, I started playing the piano and getting involved in activities outside the family circle. And when I was 14, I had my own band. We played in rehearsal rooms, clubs or places we were too young to be. We would perform our own songs, and sometimes I would come straight from a piano recital, a lesson, or a competition and play some of that music on stage.
Q: What pieces do you associate with your early years as a piano student?
A: During my time at Juilliard, I took classes with William Daghlian. We spent a year working on Brahms’ Ballad No. 1 – not for the notes themselves, but for the nuances. There’s so much that’s not in the score. The score is the coordinates of the music. But you have to dive deep to understand, and to really get there, you have to strip yourself as an artist. From these apparently simple compositions, we find a way to reveal the essence — the science and the soul.
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Q: Did you follow any models or inspirations when you started mixing classical music with other genres?
A: In the early 20th century, the European classical tradition merged with the traditions of black America and first-generation immigrants, giving rise to a new American cultural identity. The fusion of all of this is very inspiring to me. There was a wonderful exchange, marked by a reverence for quality and craftsmanship, but also by a profound originality.
Q: Why record a classic album now?
A: In classical music, there is a reverence that, while admirable, can be suffocating, limiting our ability to dialogue with it and explore the opportunities for creative transformation that it offers. Why do we hide from it? Why do we part with something so beautiful? I love the idea of creating something that is for everyone.
Q: In your opinion, where does this suffocating tendency come from?
A: Classical music made it possible to write compositions, but it also made many people become attached to the sheet music, forgetting the mystery inherent to music. If great composers appeared here today, influenced by blues, jazz, hip-hop, gospel, soul and R&B, I believe they would integrate these rhythms into their compositions. And the music would evolve as variations on a theme, rather than remaining a fixed, unchanging score over time.
Q: Can you tell me about your connection to Beethoven?
A: His music is deeply African, full of polyrhythms, with binary and ternary time coexisting all the time. The blues feeling is already present in his music, before blues even existed as a term, form or style. There is an underlying human condition that is at the core of who we all are. The greatest artists manage to capture, embrace and express this essence, even before we have a name for it.
Q: How did you decide which pieces to include on this album?
A: I wanted to spark the imagination of people who might not consider themselves musicians anymore. Every person who gets drunk at a party ends up playing a version of “Für Elise”. The notes can be completely wrong. But it’s beautiful because it’s a community musical expression. It invites people not just to listen, but to participate, to dialogue with Beethoven’s music, just as we do with other works in the public domain, such as “When the Saints March”.
Q: One of the tracks is titled “5th Symphony in Congo Square,” a tribute to the iconic location in New Orleans where black American music thrived.
A: I thought about the atmosphere in Congo Square during the celebrations, when our ancestors and the rest of the culture came together in a profoundly transformative moment in American history. And I adapted that to the implicit rhythms of the Fifth Symphony.
Q: You recently mentioned that some genres are seen as “pristine, preserved, and European,” while others as “black, sweaty, and improvised.” What did you mean?
A: Sometimes we revere music not just for its greatness, but also for its Europeanness. And there are things we hesitate to revere because of the communities they originate from or the places they should be played: whether in a bar, a courtyard, in houses of ill repute, or even in a church. I’m not really trying to challenge a tradition or a system. I simply believe there is genuine value and transformative creative power in seeking purity of expression rather than being bound by rules and regulations.
Q: You mentioned the importance of revitalizing the tradition of spontaneous composition, something widely present in jazz, within the context of classical music.
A: Spontaneous composition is trusting that you have refined your artistic voice and identity to the point where you feel worthy of dialogue with the great masters. It’s the confidence that you have something relevant and, dare I say, indispensable to add to these essential melodies and themes.
Q: When recording this album, did you create each version on the fly?
A: I thought a lot about everything beforehand. It takes a lot of preparation, a lot of understanding, and carefully adjusting the balance between melody, rhythm, sound and harmony to arrange or anticipate a composition before sitting down at the instrument.
Q: The album includes some original compositions inspired by Beethoven’s life and music. What was your objective?
A: I form a story in my mind, and then it guides my hands on what to play. “Life of Ludwig” is the story of Beethoven’s life in sound in less than two minutes. She segues into “Für Elise-Reverie,” which is a reverie into “Für Elise,” a 15-minute version of the piece. “Dusklight Movement” is a counterpoint to the “Moonlight” Sonata, adopting some of the smaller, blues-evoking agitation of the first movement. Maybe in it you will hear a little of “The Thrill Is Gone”, by BB King.
Q: You mentioned that this album reveals a more vulnerable and intimate side of yourself.
A: In a world full of “isms,” layers, and masks, there is a unique beauty in vulnerability.
Q: What would Beethoven think of your album?
A: He would say, “That looks like fire. I love it.” This is the essence of the beauty of the act of creating. It doesn’t matter what he thinks. Because when we leave, what we leave behind will be our legacy, that is, who we are and what we did to contribute to the greater good of humanity. And he did a lot. Now it’s our turn. It is up to us to determine the meaning of what we are creating.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
