Jon Batiste is a talented pianist who leads the band at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In this Fresh Air interview (44':25"), he starts explaining how he grew up in a musical family in Louisiana, where he started singing, and then turned to percussion and the piano. But what makes this interview unique is that he plays the piano to illustrate his technique (02':53"- 05':27"), his style (14':36"- 16'-30") and influences like the bamboula rhythm (07':37"- 10':05"), Thelonious Monk (17':20"- 20':12"), (20':38"- 21':47"), or Bach (23':20"- 24'-33"). Jon Batiste also shows how music can create an atmosphere and convey feeling like in "St James Infirmary", which he subsequently analyzes (25':43"- 29':10"), and he finally performs his own personal version of the children's song "If you are happy and you know it" (40':11"- 42'-40"). Jon Batiste has recently published an album called Hollywood Africans, "a mix of boogie woogie, blues, standards and originals, including compositions inspired by classical music".
The language in the interview is rather technical at times, so the interview is classified as C2, but the music Jon Batiste plays can be enjoyed by anyone at any level.
