Jon Batiste
brings his jazz and classical influences together on 2024's intimate and improvisatory
Beethoven Blues
. While recognized for his broad piano artistry,
Batiste
's rise to greater public attention -- particularly his acclaimed pop albums like 2021's Grammy-winning
We Are
and 2023's
World Music Radio
-- means that you can often overlook just how creative and technically adept a piano instrumentalist he is. Here, he underlines that skill, interpreting a handful of well-known works by German composer
Ludwig van Beethoven
, along with several of his own compositions inspired by the composer.
came up playing jazz in New Orleans, studied classical music, and earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees from Juilliard. He also composed a symphony, as was showcased in the 2023 documentary American Symphony. All of which is to say that
is clearly familiar with classical music and could easily record a more straightforward album within the classical tradition. However, he's not interested in doing that. Instead, he plays each song freely, as if from memory, allowing himself plenty of room to improvise and rework the songs in the moment. There's a balance of playfulness and reverence to these performances, as if he is playing for a small audience at a private event. Throughout, he readily merges his influences, as on the romantic "Für Elise," where he adds a bluesy call-and-response flourish to the end of each phrase. Similarly, on the dramatic "Symphony No. 5," following the iconic "fate knocking at the door" intro, he leaps into a roiling New Orleans-style barroom stomp, punctuating the second-line-esque transformation with a jubilant vocal "whoop." Elsewhere, he subtly reharmonizes "Ode to Joy" into a yearning gospel and R&B ballad. His own songs are just as genre-bending, as on "Dusklight Movement," where his slow, languid lines evoke a blend of
Glenn Gould
and
Bill Evans
, while the rambling "Waldstein Wobble" sounds improbably like
Dr. John
ripping into a klezmer tune. If there's a sense that
is playing as much for himself as his audience on
, it perhaps shouldn't be a surprise. Notably, he spent much of 2021 and 2022 supporting his wife, writer
Suleika Jaouad
, during her battle with cancer, a process featured in the American Symphony documentary. With
, he leans into the piano, sharing with his audience a hard-won act of restorative creative play. ~ Matt Collar