“He was a joy to perform with, an endless source of inspiration and light,” Batiste says of Wonder. Batiste picks things up fast.Īfter three years, The Late Show has become, he says, “like my cool day job, where I get to hang out with famous people.” Famous people such as Oprah Winfrey and Stevie Wonder, with whom he duetted on the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, giving a poignant rendition of the African-American National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing. I really loved the idea of trying something and failing, because that’s how you learn.” True, though most of us don’t learn the ropes in front of an audience of millions on national television. So with comedy I was open to experimenting. I would always be the one who got away with it. I was quiet but I’d always have a friend who was really rambunctious, and who would get into trouble. As a kid I was always the second-fiddle class clown. “I’d had roles that were semi-comedic in Spike Lee films, but that was about it. After The Colbert Report ended he gave me a call and said he had a new show - and the rest is history.”ĭid Batiste have much comedy experience before The Late Show? “Not really,” he says. “He can talk to people about politics on the highest level, but he’s also a thespian with a theatre background, who understands comedy and improv. He first became friends with Colbert after twice appearing as a guest on The Colbert Report, which finished in 2014, the year before its host succeeded David Letterman on The Late Show.
#WONDERFUL LIFE SONG SERIES#
(His résumé also includes a position as artistic director-at-large at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and acting roles in the HBO series Treme and two Spike Lee films, Red Hook Summer and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus.) His gift for improvisation, both comedic and musical, has made him a star. A jazz prodigy and graduate of New York’s prestigious Juilliard School for the performing arts, Batiste is as comfortable behind the piano as he is bantering on air with Colbert or goofing around in the sketches. Regis Deer Valley and the grand opening of The St. Regis events, including the fifth anniversary of The St. Regis guests (he has played live at a number of St. It’s extremely refreshing.īatiste’s effervescent brand of charm – quick-witted yet cynicism-free – will be familiar to viewers of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, for which Batiste has been bandleader since 2015, and also to St. His outlook reminds me of the famous Louis Armstrong song What a Wonderful World.
Even on an oppressively humid afternoon in New York, the dapper 31-year-old still manages to exude a joyful enthusiasm. A conversation with Jon Batiste is like drinking a tall glass of liquid optimism.
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