Last month, I got to see my brilliant friend Jon Batiste play at Radio City Music Hall. My kids were dancing in the aisle. He took us through all of the genres and the things.
But one moment was truly unforgettable.
For minutes that felt like a lifetime but that you also didn’t want to end, Jon expanded on his viral TV riff on Beethoven’s Für Elise.
This week, thankfully for the world, he released a version of it to everyone. It’s a preview of an album that will drop soon.
But today, right now, right here, you can listen to “Für Elise-Batiste” below.
This song is a rare piece of art in this moment that has the potential to represent all of a country that rarely feels like an “all” anymore. It is Black and it is white. It is classical and it is gospel and it is the blues. It is melancholy and it is hopeful. It is German and it is New Orleans. It shows how little it takes to make the sounds of some of us sound like the sounds of others of us. It makes a case, to my mind, for an all.
Listen.
OMG! This is mesmerizing ... I love it! Thank you for sharing!
Incredible creativity!