Current:Home > reviewsJon Batiste’s ‘Beethoven Blues’ transforms classical works into unique blues and gospel renditions -LegacyBuild Academy
Jon Batiste’s ‘Beethoven Blues’ transforms classical works into unique blues and gospel renditions
View
Date:2025-04-14 08:08:00
NEW YORK (AP) — When Grammy-award winner Jon Batiste was a kid, say, 9 or 10 years old, he moved between musical worlds — participating in local, classical piano competitions by day, then “gigging in night haunts in the heart of New Orleans.”
Free from the rigidity of genre, but also a dedicated student of it, his tastes wove into one another. He’d find himself transforming canonized classical works into blues or gospel songs, injecting them with the style-agnostic soulfulness he’s become known for. On Nov. 15, Batiste will release his first ever album of solo piano work, a collection of similar compositions.
Titled “Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1),” across 11 tracks, Batiste collaborates, in a way, with Beethoven, reimagining the German pianist’s instantly recognizable works into something fluid, extending across musical histories. Kicking off with the lead single “Für Elise-Batiste,” with its simple intro known the world over as one of the first pieces of music beginners learn on piano, he morphs the song into ebullient blues.
“My private practice has always been kind of in reverence to, of course, but also to demystify the mythology around these composers,” he told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of Wednesday’s album release announcement.
The album was written through a process called “spontaneous composition,” which he views as a lost art in classical music. It’s extemporization; Batiste sits at the piano and interpolates Beethoven’s masterpieces to make them his own.
“The approach is to think about, if I were both in conversation with Beethoven, but also if Beethoven himself were here today, and he was sitting at the piano, what would the approach be?” he explained. “And blending both, you know, my approach to artistry and creativity and what my imagined approach of how a contemporary Beethoven would approach these works.”
There is a division, he said, in a popular understanding of music where “pristine and preserved and European” genres are viewed as more valuable than “something that’s Black and sweaty and improvisational.” This album, like most of his work, disrupts the assumption.
Contrary to what many might think, Batiste said that Beethoven’s rhythms are African. “On a basic technical level, he’s doing the thing that African music ingenuity brought to the world, which is he’s playing in both a two meter and a three meter at once, almost all the time. He’s playing in two different time signatures at once, almost exclusively,” he said.
Batiste performs during the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival this year. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
“When you hear a drum circle, you know, the African diasporic tradition of playing in time together, you’re hearing multiple different meters happening at once,” he continued. “In general, he’s layering all of the practice of classical music and symphonic music with this deeply African rhythmic practice, so it’s sophisticated.”
“Beethoven Blues” honors that complexity. “I’m deeply repelled by the classism and the culture system that we’ve set up that degrades some and elevates others. And ultimately the main thing that I’m drawn in by is how excellence transcends race,” he said.
When these songs are performed live, given their spontaneous nature, they will never sound exactly like they do on record, and no two sets will be the same. “If you were to come and see me perform these works 10 times in a row, you’d hear not only a new version of Beethoven, but you would also get a completely new concert of Beethoven,” he said.
“Beethoven Blues” is the first in a piano series — just how many will there be, and over what time frame, and what they will look like? Well, he’s keeping his options open.
“The themes of the piano series are going to be based on, you know, whatever is timely for me in that moment of my development, whatever I’m exploring in terms of my artistry. It could be another series based on a composer,” he said.
“Or it could be something completely different.”
veryGood! (767)
Related
- Paula Abdul settles lawsuit with former 'So You Think You Can Dance' co
- FACT FOCUS: A look at claims made by Trump at news conference
- Inside an 'ambush': Standoff with conspiracy theorists left 1 Florida deputy killed, 2 injured
- US women’s volleyball prevailed in a 5-set ‘dogfight’ vs. Brazil to play for Olympic gold
- The White House is cracking down on overdraft fees
- California governor vows to take away funding from cities and counties for not clearing encampments
- 2024 Olympics: Canadian Pole Vaulter Alysha Newman Twerks After Winning Medal
- Wall Street rallies to its best day since 2022 on encouraging unemployment data; S&P 500 jumps 2.3%
- In ‘Nickel Boys,’ striving for a new way to see
- Huge California wildfire chews through timber in very hot and dry weather
Ranking
- Rams vs. 49ers highlights: LA wins rainy defensive struggle in key divisional game
- Missouri voters pass constitutional amendment requiring increased Kansas City police funding
- Samsung is recalling more than 1 million electric ranges after numerous fire and injury reports
- Philippe Petit recreates high-wire walk between World Trade Center’s twin towers on 50th anniversary
- US wholesale inflation accelerated in November in sign that some price pressures remain elevated
- Taylor Swift cancels Vienna Eras tour concerts after two arrested in alleged terror plot
- The Latest: With major party tickets decided, 2024 campaign is set to play out as a 90-day sprint
- Watch these fabulous feline stories on International Cat Day
Recommendation
Toyota to invest $922 million to build a new paint facility at its Kentucky complex
DK Metcalf swings helmet at Seahawks teammate during fight-filled practice
Second person with spinal cord injury gets Neuralink brain chip and it's working, Musk says
CeeDee Lamb contract standoff only increases pressure on Cowboys
Newly elected West Virginia lawmaker arrested and accused of making terroristic threats
In late response, Vatican ‘deplores the offense’ of Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony tableau
Nearly 1 in 4 Americans is deficient in Vitamin D. How do you know if you're one of them?
Police shooting of Baltimore teen prompts outrage among residents