Music offers a language and a palette to speak of untruths, to right wrongs in song, and to call people to rise up. Few modern artists are better at eliciting this collective meeting of the minds than Jon Batiste.
The classically-trained pianist and 7-time GRAMMY winner — and first-ever recipient of Ray Charles "Architect of Sound" Award at the 2025 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame Gala — uses his voice and the 88 keys on the piano to create sonic textures that evoke the zeitgeist. Batiste has inspired listeners with his songs, whether originals or reimagined covers of standards from the American songbook, since his 2005 debut Times in New Orleans. And it's no surprise that his latest, BIG MONEY, offers another batch of powerful songs that make strong statements.
The message that permeates the nine-song collection — and is symbolized by its title— is that no matter how hard you work, or how much money you make, you can not add any more life to the balance sheet. The album also further exemplifies Batiste's ability to defy genre, as BIG MONEY is a subdued, bluesier sonic exploration that features a palette of musical colors and his signature jolts of joy.
As BIG MONEY implies, Batiste's songs are gifts from somewhere in the ether that offer hope when we need them the most. His entire discography bursts with compositions that create and celebrate community, and inspire and teach without getting too preachy. Batiste's goal is to reach your soul and uplift your spirit; these are songs about hope, freedom and love that both move you and make you want to move to the music.
In honor of Batiste's latest release, GRAMMY.com combed his catalog to highlight eight tracks that showcase the depth — and the breadth — of this accomplished artist.
Following graduation from Julliard, Batiste assembled a band featuring many of his classmates and musical peers. He named the group Stay Human to reflect his belief in the power of music to uplift. Batiste has always used his music as a connector, and that was the raison d'etre behind the concept (and the recording) of his 2011 EP with Stay Human, MY N.Y.
The 11-song project was recorded all on a New York subway train, using this physical representation of "connections" to make a statement about the importance of community. The artist's goal is to always search for ways — whether through original lyrics or through feelings he evokes with his chosen instruments by rearranging well-known melodies — to make connections. Sometimes, like in this version of the 1930 jazz standard "On the Sunny Side of the Street," no words are needed to move people to action.
This traditional tune from the American songbook was first a poem penned by Julia Ward Howe in the mid-1860s; she was inspired by the abolitionist singalong "John Brown's Body," adding new lyrics to create a patriotic Union rallying call for the end of slavery. On Batiste's rearranged version for The Atlantic, he brings his feelings to the classic and reinterprets it knowing the social history of the past and contemplating the present, trying to capture all of these moods in the music.
He keeps the melody intact and instead creates this bittersweet reworking in two ways. First, in the gospel delivery of a preacher the song's chorus, "Glory, glory Hallelujah." And, second, by composing this reimagination entirely on a prepared piano — a technique where objects (in this case his wallet, paper and duct tape) are placed on the strings to create unique sounds such as Gregorian chants and global rhythms to symbolize what, to him, the American Dream really means.
As he said in an interview with "Face the Nation," "It's just a blend of everything that I think that if we, at our best … the ideal of American life at its best everything co-existing and the great compromise of everything being her and being as one, and that's what the piece represents."
Originally written for Louis Armstrong as a vehicle to unite people in turbulent times, "What a Wonderful World" was penned by a pair of songwriters during the mid-1960s with the assassinations of the Kennedys, the escalating Vietnam War, the Civil Rights revolution, and racial tensions weighing heavy on their minds.
With an emotive solo piano rendition, Batiste breathes new life into this timeless tune at a time America needs it the most and once again faces a divided nation. The country, and the people, needs this elixir of optimism in song as a reminder of the everyday beauty that surrounds us.
Alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Batiste scored the music to Soul, the award-winning 2020 Disney/Pixar animated film that follows the main character, Joe Gardner, into another realm on a journey to reunite his body and his soul using jazz music as the soundtrack to this quest. As Batiste told Rolling Stone, "music in the film is a character."
Perhaps one of the most moving musical moments comes from Batiste's version of Curtis Mayfield's "It's All Right," which was made famous by his band, The Impressions, in 1963. Featured during the end credits, the uplifting track offers the perfect bookend to Soul, reminding listeners to live in the present and take every day as a gift.
"We are the chosen ones." This is the universal message that lingers long after one listens to the title cut of Batiste's Album Of The Year-winning WE ARE.
The record's underlying theme of hope and its message that humans are all connected resonated as it arrived in the midst of a global pandemic — a time of uncertainty and isolation when the world was looking for something to cling to. WE ARE offered messages that were both autobiographical and universal, blending the past, present and future in melodies and compositions that offered hope amidst hopelessness.
The title track features the St. Augustine High School Marching 100, a nod to his past and his heritage, as several generations of his family are alumni of this historically Black New Orleans high school. Written and inspired during the Black Lives Matter movement, with the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor weighing on his mind, the gospel-esque song is overwrought with the spirit of "we shall overcome" and leaves one with the universal message that "we are the chosen ones."
The funky title to WE ARE's anticipated follow-up alludes to Batiste's ongoing mission to use music as a conduit to connect. Radio, the medium to receive music for generations, should not be defined by genre, but be a place where all voices and all sounds are heard; in Batiste's eyes, all music is "world music." And with album cut "Be Who You Are," he broadcasts an important message: we need to celebrate our differences.
"You're bringing something they can't bring/ And singing something they can't sing," he asserts to the listener on the song's opening verse. With rapper J.I.D, K-pop group New Jeans and Spanish star Camilo sending a similar message in their own style (and languages), "Be Who You Are" is a quintessential example of Batiste's knack for both inspiration and connection.
Batiste's documentary explores the love and the relationship between him and his wife, Suleika Jaouad. It also chronicles Jaouad's brave battle with leukemia as Batiste attempts to pen his first symphony. This ballad — which appears in the final scene of the doc, with Batiste alone at the piano to bring this story to its poignant conclusion — encapsulates the power of their enduring love and Jaouad's courage.
As Batiste sings, "Summertime adventure/ That's what we were meant for/ I need you/And that's never goin' to change." Though specifically a personal ode, this composition is a conversation in song that is also an omnipresent lullaby of perseverance and survival that hits home for everyone.
Read More: Inside 'American Symphony': 5 Revelations About The Jon Batiste Documentary
You can't take it with you. Batiste reprises the age-old adage in the title track from his new album.
The bluesy song is a gospel-infused number that tackles capitalism head-on, along with humans' desire to acquire more and more greenbacks thinking material wealth equals happiness. Reminding us of this truth in this catchy song, Batiste croons: "You could be livin' the life, but not the dream … everybody is chasing that big, big money … so you might as well live for something you can feel." Wise words indeed, JB.