WEBVTT - Jon Batiste 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.680 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:17.319 My guest today is John Batiste. John, last night you 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:19.079 played Redrocks. Tell me about that. 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:27.120 Well, well, you know, riding along in my automobile, my 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.240 baby besigned me after wheel Man. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.520 I sunk so hard I lost my voice to people 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:34.960 were stomp It was two hours and forty one minutes 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:35.920 of a performance. 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.000 I don't even call it a performance. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:43.839 It's a spiritual practice, celebration of life, love, joy music. 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:45.800 I mean we played. 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:51.040 So much that I lost track of even where I 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:52.800 was and what was going on. 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:54.040 That it was a concert. 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.080 The band was on just the band was on eleven, 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:04.399 and we had Steve Jordan, Pedrito Martinez and a few 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:08.880 other special guests, Nick Waterhouse Andrew Day. So it was 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.119 it just felt like a true zenith moment. And this 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:15.119 is just the beginning of the tour. So I'm very 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:16.280 excited to continue. 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.920 You say two hours and forty one minutes, so you time. 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.880 It exactly, No, but someone on my team does. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.640 And it came to me afterwards, and you know, this 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.320 is after showing me photographs of the security at Red 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:36.920 Rocks who were becoming one with the audience and showing 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.680 me photos of the staff and videos of the staff. 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.400 Just celebrated and danced, and we jumped off the stage 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.200 at one point, and we were in the audience for 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:50.080 about thirty minutes playing. And then after that, when I 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.120 kind of came down, my key hour comes to me. 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.400 She says, do you know how long you played just now? 0:01:57.880 --> 0:01:59.960 And I was like, well, it felt like the normal 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.520 set length, but how long was it? She said it 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.920 was two hours and forty one minutes, and that's not 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.639 counting the encore, so it just was. I mean, those 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.280 are the kind of things that happened. You know, it's 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:13.799 in the church. 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:15.720 They say, we got to tarry here for a while. 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:18.880 Had you played Red Rocks before? 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:23.680 No, that was my first time playing, first time planing, 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:29.280 and I just I've heard so many great stories. It's 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.800 hard to describe what it's like on that stage until 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:34.880 you're on the stage. So now I have this first 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:40.480 hand experience that it's just it's really a sacred zone 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:46.560 for music making. It's a cathedral and ancient cathedral of music, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.720 and you feel that sort of presence when you're there. 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.320 There were moments where I would just play in the 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.320 context which you wouldn't recital, you know, just solo piano 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.839 and I would be playing, and you could just hear 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:05.200 the resonance of the space, and you could feel the 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:10.320 way that it all just works in the divine alignment, 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:16.440 and there's nothing that beats God's design. There's just such 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:20.320 a special resonance in the frequency. You know how they 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.440 say that the overtone series, the harmonic series. If you 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.320 listen to water, or if you listen to the lowest 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.560 note on the piano, you can hear the entire infinite 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.399 harmonic series that makes up the Western Canada music, well 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:39.160 tempered music, and it's in nature. I really experienced that 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.920 last night for maybe the first time in my life, 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.640 playing a solo piano segment of the show, where you 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:50.920 could hear the resonance of our well tempered system in 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:53.880 action with nature ecologically. 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.280 Okay, you played a million different venues. A lot of 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:01.720 them are just true aditional concert halls. Are there other 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:06.120 venues that have turned into transcendent experiences or somewhat different? 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.560 Bob, That's what I'm in the business of, that matter 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.160 what I'm playing, what I'm in the business is doing 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:19.800 is creating an experience that transcends the space and the 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.159 time in the moment that we're in, so that this 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:25.320 music really is used for what. 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.440 It's made for. It's more than entertainment. It's a spiritual practice. 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:30.920 Music was a part of the fabric of everyday life 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.680 for many communities at the beginning of time, since the 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:38.400 first drum in Africa, the passing of the fiddle and Appalachia. 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:40.320 I mean, just think about all of the different ways 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.760 in New Orleans that music is still a. 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:44.360 Part of the fabric of everyday life. 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.400 Music for when people are born, music for when people 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.440 pass away into the next round. There's just such a 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:55.679 special power that music has, and I truly feel blessed 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:57.919 to be a joy bringer in music, not just with 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.720 skill and craft. Sense of craft is never lost in 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:05.280 that experience. But you know, I mean, I just remember 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:10.160 playing in all manner of venue and having this sort 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.599 of transcendent experience bubble up from the beginning of the 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:15.479 concert and by the end of it we're all family. 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:20.160 Okay. You talk about a long history of music through 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.279 the time of man. In your lifetime, have you seen 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.680 a change in the perception of music, the kind of 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.479 music or you just think the ball keeps rolling. 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.719 Well I think that more and more the music industry 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.240 is is with. 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.800 And this is with many great exceptions. I don't say 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.000 this as a blanket statement, but the music industry is 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:54.960 more controlled and operated and even inhabited by folks who 0:05:55.000 --> 0:06:00.159 don't really care about music making. There are those who 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.760 still care about music making and still care about the 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:07.320 idea of what music is in the world philosophically, the 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.640 history and the lineage of music and the traditions being 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.880 carried forward and added to in the continuum of human creativity. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:22.320 There's a sense of devaluation of the music and there's 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:28.640 a sense of creating this sort of pacified audience that 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.560 I believe is a mark of a lot of the 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:39.520 governmental peril that we see in this time and a 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:41.560 mark of where we are in the world in terms 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:46.000 of how opaying information has become and how there's a 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:54.160 sense of not always knowing if someone has been compromised, 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:59.840 when in most cases for generations, these are trusted so 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:05.120 trusted voices and a lot of things have been compromised 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:09.000 as of late, So we're in this age where there's 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:15.160 a post truth resonance, and I believe that that directly 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:20.680 is impacting the arts and the creative communities. And it's 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.640 why the real musicians, the real artists, the ones who 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.640 really understand the power of what we do, will rage 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:30.800 against it. You saw a similar thing happen in the 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:38.600 sixties and seventies, and hopefully there'll be a consensus amongst 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.000 artists to continue to come together in this time in 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:42.800 a similar way. 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:48.560 Okay, let's go back to the sixties. In the sixties, 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.840 it was really the youth versus the elders. We had 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.160 the war in Vietnam and the draft, and we had 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.720 ubiquitous top forty radio such as if you had a 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:06.360 that said something, everyone heard it. Other than Trump, no 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:11.120 one can reach everybody. So in addition, a lot of 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.000 people are afraid of pissing off Trump. In the consequences, 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:17.720 there are people who are afraid to speak up, take 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.840 a stand, and then there are people who see themselves 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.880 as brands and don't want to sacrifice a dollar. Now, 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.480 there's certainly people like you, But this movement you taught me, 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.760 you certainly set the landscape. Is it something you already 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:38.960 see or is something going to change? What has to change? 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:44.480 It's always people power, people power, is it? Man? 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:50.800 I'm really someone who sees my artistry as of the 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.360 people and photo people and with the people, And that's 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.800 really a true statement of what this movement has to be. 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.520 It can't be from the top down. It has to 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.360 be from the dirt. And that means that you have 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:08.120 to motivate people to understand that we are being duped 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.280 and bamboozled. You have to get people to a place 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:16.920 where they feel a motivation and a conviction too to 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.720 use the powers that they have and the band together 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:23.840 and use the voice of the collective community to say something. 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.720 And that's something that's difficult to do in this time 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:32.040 because again we're there's so many things that have segmented 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:37.760 society and amplified a minority's voice as the majority. 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.920 So when you have that happen, there's this sort of. 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:47.800 That that there's a mirage of of of. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.439 Insight and and and and you can't really know what's real. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:56.080 So in the sixties, when you just just you just 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.800 laid out the design of how the delivery systems of 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:03.719 music and me right today you said that. 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:05.880 Well, there's only Trump that can reach everybody. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:12.800 Now I'll add to that, there's also so many people 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:17.160 who have a voice and have cultivated a community, whether 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:19.840 it be the dark Web, whether it be all of 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:26.680 these other toxic spaces that exist. And that's become something 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.960 that the mainstream media has not only begin to address, 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:34.319 but in some cases even adopt. And this has created 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.880 this sort of narrative where it can only come from 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.880 people face to face. It can only go back to 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:50.320 the natural person to person communication, localized community activism and 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:54.280 engagement artists making music and speaking to the things that 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:56.000 are around them. 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:57.760 Another things saying to church, take care. 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:03.199 Of demons in your range, that people have to become 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:11.000 become social again in the context of person to person 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.240 communication outside of the bounds of the Internet and outside 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.080 of the bounds of artificial intelligence. And nothing's wrong with 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.679 those things, per se. But when we lose the ability 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.920 to see each other and now we're only seeing groups 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.960 and isms and categories, it leaves us in this state 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.040 of disarray. 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:43.120 Okay, what can a musician do to effect change, combat 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.320 the past and move us to this place you said 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:47.000 we should be in. 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:52.640 Music is the most powerful force on God's green eer, Bob, 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:55.800 let me tell you what music can do. 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:56.960 Music. 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.400 Last night we went in Red Rose, ten thousand people 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.400 singing as to clapping against it. They don't know each other, 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:10.360 they left as family. If artists make true music and 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:16.120 speak from a place of authenticity and perform from a 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:21.439 place of excellence, that is something that goes beyond technique, 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:26.199 goes beyond study. It's just a place where it becomes 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:33.320 a voice of the creator coming through the vessel of 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:38.120 the musician. And that's what I believe musicians can do 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.320 is be great, truly great, not great and branding not great, 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:48.959 CEOs truly great because when people see that, and people 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.840 experience that, something in their soul opens up, something in 0:12:53.880 --> 0:13:00.160 their heart becomes less hardened. There's an ability then for 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.520 there to be a true dialogue that's rooted in humanity. 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.160 My band for many years and still at times i'll 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.319 play with this band, it's called Stay Human and my 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:12.840 music for many years since I was in college, I 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.720 started to call it social music for lack of figuring 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:20.120 out there was a better genre title for it, and 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.800 thinking about all that, I'm just seeing the power of 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.000 music more and more, learning that we can speak to 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:33.400 people on a real, authentic wavelength, and then that allows 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.520 for us to have conversations about other things. 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:38.880 But first it starts with us being great. 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.440 You saw this in many, many times in history where artists, 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.200 whether it's Bob Marley or Lewis Armstrong and Nina some 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:49.120 own not just their voice and their perspective on things, 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.160 but their excellence coupled with their perspective on things moved people, 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.440 moved mountains. Maybe of Staples pop state of Staples singers. 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:57.920 I mean, I could go on and on. Man. 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.720 Even before that the way that we use, you know, 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.040 I was I was able to have a relationship with 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.760 Congressman John Lewis before he passed, and he talked about 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.760 the times when they were marching and they would break 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.720 into song and what the songs meant and what the 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.960 act of singing together meant in those moments. And they 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.320 weren't professional musicians striving for excellence in the craft. But 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.960 this is what our musicians left us. They left us 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:30.120 with these superpowers. They left us with all of these gifts, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.200 and we're not using them to the fullest of our ability. 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.960 We're using them for scale in capitalism and to make 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.920 money and to and to dupe our youth into this 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:46.840 sort of full sexual revolution, full in the in in 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:53.320 identity that this fake identity of this generation gap that's 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:55.720 a perceived generation gap when we should actually be all 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:00.360 connected across the generations. There's so many things that we've 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:04.240 been duped to believe through music that's been engineered to 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.920 bamboozle us and to confuse us. So I believe that 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:12.040 if we just used music for what it actually is 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:14.640 and for what it actually can do, and we did 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:16.960 it at scale, in the same way we're doing this 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:18.880 other stuff at scale, then. 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:24.280 It would change so much of the ethos of our time. 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.280 That's very interesting because then it becomes less about a 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:33.600 specific song and more about the performance and outlook. But 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.320 in any event, you're playing to this large audience of 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:40.440 thousands last night. Who is John Batiste's audience. 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.240 You know, my audience, which is an audience I'm very 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:50.120 proud of, is made up of lots of families. There's 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:52.560 a lot of people who I tell you one story, 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.560 I was in Indiana. My first tour was last year, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:57.960 and this is my second tour. I've had a very 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.200 unusual career path, if you want to call it a career, 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.080 I don't really like that word. But just in general, 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.960 you know, I feel like I'm humbled to serve people 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.000 through my music. And I'm humbled to be born into 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:14.000 this cultural inheritance of New Orleans music and New Orleans 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.720 musical families, and I take it very seriously to carry 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:19.360 on the tradition of that. So that are those who 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.920 are into that and know that New Orleans lineage and 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:25.680 have followed that that are in my audience. 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.560 There's a lot of people who, you know, I learned 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:29.320 this in Indiana. 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.120 There's a four generations of a family that came out 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:38.360 and the eldest grandmother comes to me and says, I 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:43.280 saw Elvis and you and Alvis are my favorite artists 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:43.920 of all time. 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:46.760 I've been waiting for you now. 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.480 Usually people are looking for the coveted demographic of the 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.120 eighteen to twenty five or whatever. 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.440 You know that, and they are there too. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:02.000 But I'm great, full, for the grateful for the the 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:06.320 folks who see me and it reminds them of a 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:13.560 time or an artist or a meaningful cultural treasure, a 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:17.520 meaningful era where we were creating at our highest and 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.720 representing the best ideals of who we are in the arts. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.879 And then there's a lot of kids who were coming 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.719 up musicians, A lot of young musicians in the audience 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:33.040 who are you know, they're just starting their journey. There's 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.000 so many kids that resonate with my music. Also, now 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.200 that's the other side of the spectrum. 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.520 There's a lot of aid and under. 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:48.200 So there's families, there's a lot of older folks. There's 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.960 people who love New Orleans music. There's a lot of 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:55.119 people who are looking for an alternative to contemporary pop music, 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.159 which I'm also proud to represent bringing a lot of 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:03.400 sounds and music into the popular music space without being 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.720 a pop artist. But then there are a lot of 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:12.920 young musicians who are there and kids who are not musicians, 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:15.320 but something in the music resonates with them, which I'm 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:20.200 also very proud of. They're like, I don't know, there's 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.119 something in the frequency of the sound that makes it 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.639 feel like it's for them. And I've done things that 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.439 are just for kids when I was doing the stuff 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:31.679 I did with Pixar and things like that, but my 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:37.119 albums in particular, I'm always grateful to see the folks 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.200 reach out or the concert tickets go to kids, and 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.560 people online sending videos of their kid dancing to the music. 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:48.000 My kid decided he wanted to play piano because he 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.560 saw your concert or a lot of first concert goers 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.920 I get in the audience. So, yeah, that's a good blend. 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.200 It's a lot of it's a lot of range. Man, 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:02.360 I don't know what to say. 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:10.199 Okay, And what about black, white, Latino, red blue. 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.280 Yeah, there's a lot of people in the audience from 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.320 all races, depending on where we go and where we play, 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.720 you know. I love the fact that we'll play at 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.680 Coachella and it'll be one audience, and it'll be predominantly 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.240 younger people of people who are into the contemporary music scene. 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.960 Then we played before Red Rocks, we played in Veil 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.640 and it was upper middle class white folks wearing Patagonia. 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:42.800 I like to call it Padagucci. All right, No, No, I'm. 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.760 Just no, that's a good name. I know, zackly D. 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.960 I just never heard Padagucci before. Yeah. 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.880 So, and then I'll play in the South, like when 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.760 we played in Atlanta, or play in New Orleans, or 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:59.520 I'll play I'll play places where and this isn't the norm, 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:04.840 but if I go there, it's mostly black folks. And 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.639 and I love the fact that my community supports me 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:12.280 because I'm not a rapper and I'm not an R 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:17.360 and B singer. And we don't have a a archetype 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.920 in contemporary culture for the musician star. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:23.160 That's not something that exists anymore. 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:28.040 The musician star and the band leader right absolutely most 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.400 of the time. Because of the way that we've been 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:36.240 they've tried to program us and to separate us. The 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.720 way that capitalism has created these genre categories is so 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.040 that it can be segregated. It started off based on 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.439 race records. Chuck Berry, to me is one of my 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.440 top five influence of all time, all of the race records. 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.000 I won't go into that as the tangent. I'm liable 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:53.240 to go on tangents, Bob. 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:55.960 Now, No, the tangents are the best part. Digression is 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:58.760 a spice of life. Go off, fund your tangent as 0:20:58.800 --> 0:20:59.520 much as you want. 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:09.840 But I'm thinking about how you know, our contemporary black community. 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:14.680 Our people are now programmed to think that music that's 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.080 for them has to come from the voice of a 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:19.800 rapper or an R and B singer in the contemporary 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.359 milieu of R and B. And I'm very proud that 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:27.040 over the years of building my audience, I've been able 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:33.439 to cultivate, specifically in the South, in the Southeast, a 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:37.840 community of people of color, Black, a black community, a 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:43.240 black audience that is listening to music that sometimes we 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.000 will play songs from the forties and fifties. 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:46.000 On the show. 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.560 We just last night did a Chuck Berry medley, as 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:50.960 I was saying, Then we went to Fast Domino. Then 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:53.360 we went into Duke Ellington and we played things ain't 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:55.960 what they used to be. We played don't mean to 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.240 think if it ain't got that swing into about one 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:01.920 hundred and fifty VP chopping wood swing that you would 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:06.600 hit basic play right. So this is not what my 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:14.399 community is acculturated into twenty six to listen to. Yet 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:19.520 it's what we were the pioneers of. And this is 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:24.440 the this is part of the mass deception that that's 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.600 happened in the way that we've spoiled our music and 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.800 thus the lineage of how we understand the music and 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.119 what's for us versus what's not for us? And I 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.399 say this to say everything is for everyone. Music is 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:42.159 the universal language. It exists so that it can break 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:49.680 down barriers. Yet because of this sort of this this 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.480 this psychological warfare that we've been dealing with in a 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:57.359 way that branding has overtaken actual craft and history and 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:00.560 lineage and the idea of the thing has become greater 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:01.720 than the thing itself. 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:07.679 People believe that, oh, this is only for me, and 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:09.720 I wouldn't even. 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.920 Consider this over here, this whole world over here, because 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:17.439 it hasn't been in my orbit. It hasn't been service 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:21.919 to me. And I'm a proud disruptor of that. I 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:25.639 rage against that, and I love when I can have 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:27.520 in the audience. 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:31.920 This sort of experience where. 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:36.200 People now and this is taken close to twenty years. 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:40.639 I started when I was fifteen, and I'll go out. 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:43.119 We did a show in London and it was a 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:46.280 Royal Festival Hall and you know, it's about three thousand, 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:49.080 three to four thousand people you see in the audience, 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:52.560 and it was all different demographics. And I love that 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:56.560 because it was me solo piano in Europe, a black 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:03.240 pianist playing in a classical music milieu in a concert 0:24:03.280 --> 0:24:08.439 hall for a wide range of an audience unheard of. 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:11.520 I love that that happened. And the reason I bring 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:13.200 it up is because the thing happened to the concerts. 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:16.639 To illustrate that is, at one point, as an improptu movement, 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:20.479 I played a version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, and then 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:24.560 I melded that into Tupac's changes and you could hear 0:24:25.119 --> 0:24:31.120 the different parts of the audience reacting, and then you could. 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:34.040 See from the response after the concert. 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:37.320 The thought that those two things could be next to 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:39.360 each other, and these two poets could speak to each 0:24:39.359 --> 0:24:46.840 other across time, and the relationship between that being displayed 0:24:46.960 --> 0:24:49.880 just in a bare form in this way, coming from 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:54.800 the vessel of a guy who looks like me with dreads. 0:24:54.520 --> 0:24:57.879 It really struck a lot of people, and that was 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:00.720 one of the highlights of that concert w when you 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:04.320 can see the people were responding to afterwards, and it 0:25:04.400 --> 0:25:06.600 just struck me as, Oh, this is my role, this 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:08.960 is what I do in culture, this is who I am. 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:12.040 I'm here to kind of we finally this time, because 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:14.879 of technology and internet, all of these different things, we 0:25:14.880 --> 0:25:17.600 can bring things together and synthesize things that have never 0:25:17.640 --> 0:25:21.480 been put together before. Nothing is new under the sun, 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:24.879 but we can take elements and build something out of 0:25:24.960 --> 0:25:28.560 these elements that the pioneers have left us. And that's 0:25:28.640 --> 0:25:32.040 our form of being pioneers in this time, and to 0:25:32.119 --> 0:25:35.600 really use the power and not forget what we have inherited, 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:39.040 So I'll say that to say my audience is diverse 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:42.360 by design, but I'm still on the path of developing that, 0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:48.720 and it's been a very intentional, developmental process to focus 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:50.760 on one element at a time. I was a jazz 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:53.720 pianist for many years only, and I faced the world 0:25:53.800 --> 0:25:57.400