I don’t talk about music very much on iPhone J.D., but if you are looking for something truly amazing to listen to on your iPhone and you enjoy the piano, I strongly recommend that you check out the newest album by Jon Batiste called Hollywood Africans. Although Jon Batiste has been playing music his entire life — he comes from a big music family in New Orleans — I suspect that most folks simply know him as the bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. But he is far from simply a TV personality; he is a seriously talented musician, and I often find my jaw dropping as I watch him play the piano.
Before listening to the album, I recommend that you listen to the first 20 minutes of a great recent episode of NPR’s Fresh Air podcast, in which Batiste sits down at a piano with Terry Gross, plays parts of some of the songs on the album, and explains what motivated him to create this album. Click here to listen on the NPR website, or if you use the Overcast app to listen to podcasts, here is a direct link. Using just my Apple Watch Series 4 and my AirPods, I enjoyed listening to that episode last night during an outdoor walk. As I used my Apple Watch to listen to Jon Batiste, I remembered that he was actually featured in a 15 second ad for the Apple Watch in early 2016; the link in my In the news post from back then no longer works, but you can still watch the video on YouTube at this link.
As for the album itself, every song is great, but I’ll just mention the first two. The first song is Kenner Boogie (Apple Music link), an original piano song that that will make you tap your toes and smile, all the while wondering how one person can play all of those piano keys so quickly with just two hands. The second song is What a Wonderful World (Apple Music link), a song first recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1967. That song has been performed and interpreted countless times, but I’ve never heard an arrangement anything like this. Incredibly beautiful and moving.
I’ve seen Jon Batiste perform several times, and the first time I saw him was on May 1, 2005 at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, back when he was a teenager studying at Juilliard. I only know the date because I was so impressed by his performance that I bought his first album, Times in New Orleans (Apple Music link), and my wife took the picture at the right of me doing so. He was good back then; he is fantastic today.