Jon Batiste — The Quest for Originality, How to Get Unstuck, His Favorite Mantras, and Strategies for Living a Creative Life (#775)

“When I don’t have inspiration or I have a block, I do nothing. I live. And it’s absolutely because of the deeper inspiration that I’m blessed to feel. I feel it’s been cultivated. I’m connected to it, and I know it’s real, and it doesn’t have to greet me every day. I know it’s there.”
— Jon Batiste

Jon Batiste (@jonbatiste) is a five-time Grammy Award-winning and Academy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and composer. His eighth studio album, Beethoven Blues, is set for a November 15th release. This project marks the first installment in his solo piano series, showcasing Batiste’s interpretations of Beethoven’s iconic works, reimagined. Beethoven Blues follows Batiste’s studio album World Music Radio, which received five Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year.

Batiste is featured in Matthew Heineman’s Netflix documentary, American Symphony. The film follows Batiste’s journey, starting in early 2022, as he receives 11 Grammy nominations for his studio album We Are. Amid this success, he faces the challenge of composing a symphony for Carnegie Hall while supporting his wife, bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning journalist Suleika Jaouad, who learns her cancer has returned. 

As a composer, Batiste scored Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, now in theaters. The film depicts the chaotic 90 minutes before Saturday Night Live’s first broadcast in 1975, underscored by Batiste’s blending of jazz, classical, and contemporary elements. He composed and produced the music live on set, capturing the intensity of the show’s debut. Batiste appears in the film as Billy Preston, the show’s first musical guest.

Additionally, Batiste composed and performed music for the Disney/Pixar film Soul, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Please enjoy!

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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Want to hear another episode that includes improvised musical performance? Have a listen to my first conversation with Jamie Foxx here in which we discussed workout routines, origin stories, impersonations, parenting style, networking and staying connected before social media, lessons from Ray Charles, bombing on stage, and much more.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

• Connect with Jon Batiste:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Threads

• Beethoven Blues by Jon Batiste | Amazon
• Saturday Night (Trailer) | Sony Pictures Entertainment
• Soul | Prime Video
• Meet the World-Famous Hot-Spring Loving Snow Monkeys | Travel Japan
• Ogimi Village – A Village of Longevity Set in a Beautiful Natural Environment | Okinawa Island Guide
• Kurt Vonnegut Once Told a Story About Buying One Envelope at a Time | Snopes
• Jon Batiste on His Awards Glory: ‘Overnight a Lot of Stuff Changed’ | The Guardian
• Andrew Zimmern on Simple Cooking Tricks, Developing TV, and Addiction | The Tim Ferriss Show #40
• Jonathan Batiste & The Stay Human Band — It’s Alright with Me | Facebook
• Casio SK-1: This Legendary Lo-Fi Sampler from 1986 Is Still Worth It | David Hilowitz Music
• The Surprising Origins of the Running Man Dance! | Wehustle Clips
• How to Moonwalk | Mihran Kirakosian
• Jon Batiste Performs Freedom Live from the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, 2022 | Universal Music Group
• Austin’s #1 Music Venue | Moody Center
• Jon Batiste and Stay Human Take Their Social Music to the Streets of New York City | Marc Millman
• Suleika Jaouad on Invaluable Road Trips, the Importance of a To-Feel List, and Finding Artistic Homes (#516) – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
• Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad | Amazon
• How to Survive a Black Hole: Instructions and Other Brilliance from Astrophysicist Janna Levin – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
• City of Kenner, LA | Instagram
• The Batiste Kids (Travis, Jamal, and Jon Batiste), 1994 | WWL TV
• Jon Batiste’s Family Shares Stories About His Childhood, Rise to Fame | WWL
• Cultivating Artistry | The Juilliard School
• Walking Pneumonia: What Does It Mean? | Mayo Clinic
• The True Measures of Greatness | InsightLA Meditation
• Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello | Amazon
• Jamie Foxx on Workout Routines, Success Habits, and Untold Hollywood Stories | The Tim Ferriss Show #124
• Blues | The Library of Congress
• A Beginner’s Guide to the Blues Scale | Happy Bluesman
• Ratatouille | Prime Video

SHOW NOTES

• [00:06:46] Is the secret to long life embracing the mundane?
• [00:09:28] The gift of mistakes.
• [00:10:21] Why did Jon wait until he was 10 to speak?
• [00:12:51] How music and performance entered the picture.
• [00:13:36] An early exercise in winning over the room.
• [00:15:08] Choosing the personal facets that art expresses.
• [00:16:57] From a disappointing grade school performance to the Grammys.
• [00:21:44] Cultivating suspense and shifting modes of creative expression.
• [00:27:24] When perspective drives motivation more than stakes.
• [00:32:14] Spiritual practice and grounding mantras.
• [00:40:29] Surrender, acceptance, and growth through health challenges.
• [00:43:37] The fuzzy line between blessing and curse.
• [00:46:40] Growing up bullied as the “least talented” in a musical family.
• [00:52:50] Jon’s visionary mother guided him toward piano.
• [00:55:23] Parental support for Jon’s relocation to New York City.
• [00:56:15] Serious setbacks that almost made Jon quit Juilliard and music altogether.
• [01:00:37] Jon’s advice to a younger musician enduring a similar path of hardships.
• [01:03:11] How Jon owns what comes his way rather than allowing it to overwhelm him.
• [01:07:30] Cultivating generosity without being drained.
• [01:09:32] Jon’s billboard is invisible — but with deep posts.
• [01:11:47] My rough draft of five deep handfuls.
• [01:18:21] Jon’s answer in musical improv.
• [01:25:42] Jon’s upcoming album: Beethoven Blues (with bonus blues tutorial).
• [01:39:09] Taking the hypotenuse to catharsis and other Parting thoughts.

MORE JON BATISTE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Take your time to find the prize. There’s no rush. Pace yourself.”
— Jon Batiste

“Mistakes are amazing. Mistakes are brilliant. It’s a gift to go about your day and for something, either a mistake or something that you didn’t plan, an interruption, some seeming calamity happening that allows for you to not only respond but to create.”
— Jon Batiste

“When I was in college, my band and I would go in the subway and we would play for people. We wouldn’t ask for money. We wouldn’t busk. We would just play concerts for people who weren’t expecting a concert to just get to the point where we were fearless about presenting art.”
— Jon Batiste

“You have to understand what is it that’s yearning to be expressed within you. Even if you’re dreadfully afraid of it, you can have something within that seems so far away from the reality of your current state that it couldn’t possibly be for you in your mind. And every fiber of your being is telling you, ‘This isn’t what I should be pursuing. This isn’t who I am.’ That’s the one right there.”
— Jon Batiste

“I love to create these pockets of suspense, these pockets of pressurized creativity or pressurized experience that lead me to discovery, that [push] me forward. And I think about things that are not music, like cinema or — there are so many things that are not connected to the actual craft that I draw from much, much, much more than actually thinking about the inspiration of music and the fruit of the craft itself.”
— Jon Batiste

“There’s something about life. There’s a truth. There’s something about going through the fire that is so required and something about suffering that is so essential. This idea that we are meant to run from pain or run from difficult things and find the most leisurely and completely frictionless existence possible is such a lie.”
— Jon Batiste

“[Musical improvisation] feels like you are traveling. You’re moving, and your hand is telling you, ‘This is what I want to play.’ And as you play it, you’re seeing all the colors, and you’re hearing the sound. It starts to tell you, ‘Now I want to go here.’ And then sometimes it’s telling you things that you don’t know.”
— Jon Batiste

“Blues is an allegory for the human condition in sound. It’s a musical allegory that exists within the context of a cultural movement.”
— Jon Batiste

“If you don’t live it and it’s not a part of you, it’s not going to come out of the instrument. What we play is life. What we create is life.”
— Jon Batiste

“I don’t actually believe that failure exists. It’s not that it’s necessarily for your own good, but failure doesn’t exist. There’s opportunity for you to take something from the experience.”
— Jon Batiste

“On stage you have to present yourself in a way that is amplifying aspects of what’s inside. And ultimately, you have a decision to make as a performer to decide how far between who you actually are and who you’ve created to project on the stage.”
— Jon Batiste

“There’s a constellation of inspiration that crosses so many spectrums of society, and I can’t access it if I play by these rules.”
— Jon Batiste

“When I don’t have inspiration or I have a block, I do nothing. I live. And it’s absolutely because of the deeper inspiration that I’m blessed to feel. I feel it’s been cultivated. I’m connected to it, and I know it’s real, and it doesn’t have to greet me every day. I know it’s there.”
— Jon Batiste

PEOPLE MENTIOEND

Anton Ego
Jimi Hendrix
Jason Reitman
Billy Preston
Trent Reznor
Atticus Ross
Kurt Vonnegut
Andrew Zimmern
Molly Ferriss
Michael Jackson
MC Hammer
Jemel McWilliams
Tony Robbins
Suleika Jaouad
Alfred Hitchcock
Janna Levin
Travis Batiste
Jamal Batiste
Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews 
Jon’s Family
Anthony de Mello
Jamie Foxx
Ludwig van Beethoven

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