Jon Batiste joins us from the piano and plays some of his favorite Christmas songs. It's part two of our recent session with him. Batiste is the former band leader and music director for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He's won multiple Grammys and an Oscar. Inviting musicians to perform or play recordings of their favorite Christmas songs is a new Fresh Air tradition. It started two years ago, with DJ and co-founder of the Roots, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, who put together a playlist of Christmas songs and talked us through his picks.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Christmas has inspired some great songs in every genre, and some really bad ones. Today we'll hear some great ones. We'll start with John Batiste at the piano, playing, singing, and talking about some of his favorites. It's part two of the session we recently recorded with him.
Batiste was the bandleader and music director of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert from its premiere in 2015 until 2022. That same year, his album We Are received 11 Grammy nominations in seven different categories and won five Grammys, including Album of the Year. His new album, Beethoven Blues, features his reimaginings of Beethoven compositions.
He also wrote the score for this year's film, Saturday Night, about the first SNL broadcast, and he appears in the film as musician Billy Preston, the first musical guest. A documentary about Batiste called American Symphony is now nominated for a Grammy for Best Music Film, and Batiste is nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media. Here's the interview.
So as we speak, Christmas is coming up soon. And I don't know how you feel about Christmas music. In my opinion, like some of it is just like really fun. Some of it is kind of transcendent. And some of it is so irritating, causing like the worst earworms. And like, just like, please don't play that again. I never want to hear that again. So what's your take on Christmas songs?
Well, you know, I mean...
Charlie Brown.
I love this when Vince goes... Whoo! That's a deeply existential decision. La-na-na, la-na-na, la-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. And then the blues. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh, let's see. The other one. Christmas time.
Those are both... Yeah, aren't those both from Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas?
Yeah, I associate a lot of... that series, and Vince Guaraldi in general with Christmas. I know he's done a lot more than Christmas music, but that soundtrack, that album really changed me a lot. A lot of that influence comes into my music.
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