Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Jon Batiste’s ‘love riot’
Jazz artist gets audience on its feet.
When jazz musician Jon Batiste brings his footstomping, nine-piece band, Stay Human, to Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center tonight, chances are that concertgoers will be steered into a “love riot.”
“Love riots” are Batiste’s phrase for the funky, impromptu street parades he orchestrates with Stay Human just about everywhere in the country: on tour stops, in New Orleans, outside Carnegie Hall, and in the street outside the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Batiste performs weeknights as bandleader for “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
What this means is that the Juilliard School of Music-trained multi-instrumentalist is constantly busy. At 31, Batiste’s other day job is artistic director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and he’s touring behind his sixth album, “Christmas With Jon Batiste,” a relentlessly chipper collection of 12 holiday perennials recorded with saxophonist Aloe Blacc, drummer Jason Marsalis and violinist Lee England Jr. And there are the high-energy “love riots,” in which Batiste and company lead audiences from their concert seats onto the sidewalks for a joyful expression of music and human interaction.
“I’m a very spontaneous performer,” Batiste says, reached by phone in a car on his way to a piano recital in Manhattan, where he also lives. “When we come to music halls, Stay Human and I just open our hearts to the moment, reading the energy of the crowds. What happens next is all up to the audience.”
By the time he landed his plum gig on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in September 2015, when Colbert took over for David Letterman, Batiste had already performed in 40 countries, released five albums and appeared on HBO’s Emmy-nominated drama “Treme.”
Batiste started banging the conga drums at age 8 before switching to piano at age 12, he says. But what really sharpened his talent was transcribing lyrics and music from Super Nintendo and PlayStation video games.
Batiste added the melodica — a lime-green, Japanese-made one — to his repertoire at 15.
Much of Batiste’s Miami performance with Stay Human will feature funky arrangements of holiday chestnuts from “Christmas With Jon Batiste,” including “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “Joy to the World.” Pressed for more details, Batiste admits there isn’t a set list, nor does he want one.
“It would actually hurt the performances if we ever pre-programmed the set list,” Batiste says. “We thrive in the moment. I really do think this band has the greatest musicians in the country, if not the world.”