Jon Batiste has returned to his roots in his newest album “Beethoven Blues.” The southern Louisiana native took a break from his Grammy-winning work to go back to what caused him to fall in love with music in the first place — piano.
Batiste’s album is an 11-track cover of some of Beethoven’s greatest hits, including “Für Elise,” “Moonlight Sonata,” “Ode To Joy” and “Symphony No. 5.” Naturally, and as the album name forecasts, Batiste puts his own blues take on each track that transforms the original pieces into something you might hear in an early 20th century jazz club.
Batiste is a Juilliard-trained jazz pianist, so his decision to swing toward the likes of Beethoven is far from surprising. In an interview with Apple Music Classical, Batiste said “The endless amounts of integration, ingenuity, whether it’s from an orchestral perspective or compositional perspective… Beethoven occupies rare air in terms of the canon.”
On each track, Batiste improvises different rhythms and beats that drastically change the way the scores are heard. The entire project was recorded in just a day and a half at his Brooklyn home, but for Batiste, this is something that he has wanted to do for quite some time.
When speaking about his relationship with Beethoven in a New York Times interview, Batiste said “[Beethoven’s] music is so very African… The feeling of the blues is in his music, before the blues became a term or a form or a sound. There’s an underlying human condition at the foundation of who we all are.”
Another way Batiste’s album differs from the original album is by playing with the titles of the songs. Beethoven’s “5th Symphony” becomes “5th Symphony In Congo Square,” an ode to Batiste’s Louisiana roots. “Piano Sonata No. 21” is now “Waldstein Wobble,” a name that fits the chaotic improvisation by Batiste on the track.
The album itself is a masterpiece and though it may not enjoy commercial success due to the nature of classical music in the 21st century, Batiste has deservingly — and finally — etched his name among the best pianists alive with “Beethoven Blues.”
5/5 stars
wjackso2@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of @jonbatiste, Instagram
