Musical innovator's quiet rise
A modern take on the concept of symphony
Some tuning into American Symphony may feel from passing references early in the film that Jon Batiste is a black man who has been in the limelight more because of his Black Lives Matter and Juneteenth activism than for his music; that even though he won an Oscar and Golden Globe for his score for the Disney animated film Soul in 2020, he doesn’t deserve to be regarded as a musical celebrity.
But the film goes on to show that Batiste, while being an activist, is also a major contributor to 21st-century music, a leader of change.
While being a musical innovator first and foremost, Batiste is also a performer who collaborated with Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Willie Nelson, Ed Sheeran, Mavis Staples and others.
Matthew Heineman’s film focuses not on those collaborations, but on the lead-up to his debut orchestral performance of American Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 2022.
American Symphony is groundbreaking, with Batiste successfully challenging the norm by including in his orchestral composition jazz, R&B, soul, hip-hop and pop, each part of the orchestra being a solo performance in which everyone matters, and all contributions matter.
To Batiste, music is a tool that brings everyone together and a composition develops with every rehearsal as orchestra members add their interpretations.
The film was made with a light directorial touch, like a patchwork or scrapbook, showing Batiste progressing from his origins in Louisiana — his father a jazz musician, mother a classical pianist — to New York’s Juilliard School, at first bewildering his teachers who didn’t understand his insistence on playing his melodica in their classical music school. Batiste turned them around, the melodica becoming one of Juilliard’s serious instruments.
Then, when he was chosen to be the bandleader and musical director for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Batiste’s career was launched. His covers of Nina Simone and the Beatles added to his increasing fame and recognition, his delivery of their numbers revealing him as a multi-talented musician and performer.
Adding poignancy and depth, the film also tells the story of Batiste’s wife, the writer Suleika Jaouad, going through a bone marrow transplant, while he juggles his support for her with life on the road, torn by conflicting responsibilities and plagued with anxiety.
Michelle Obama, who executive produced together with husband Barack, in New Orleans for the film’s premier, told the Hollywood Reporter, “There’s no better place to lift up this work than in the city where music is at the heart of everything, because music is at the heart of this film.
“American Symphony opens us all up to the power and inevitability of music.
“Yet this film is about so much more than one man’s meteoric rise. It is the story of two souls — Jon and Suleika — on parallel paths.”
An inspiring tribute to the way Jon Batiste brings people and ideas together, American Symphony is a film for our times, a modern take on the concept of symphony and an insight into effective leadership.
■ Highly recommended
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