Jon Batiste’s Beethoven Blues CD (Verve Records label) contains a brilliant display of what this creative, five time Grammy winning artist is all about. His arrangements and improvisations of some of Beethoven’s greatest hits the composer wrote from 1801 to 1824, represent an engaging crossover between jazz and classical idioms. Batiste’s versatility as singer and skill on electric, acoustic guitar and melodica is well-known (as evidenced in live performances such as the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival) as is a sophisticated approach to playing the piano – which represents the heart and soul of this album. A graduate of The Juilliard School, his compositional approach to Beethovenian blends elements of 19th century musical classicism with a tonality of his Louisiana roots – which seems to make this composer’s works even more accessible and progressive.
The album’s booklet includes these comments by Batiste. “Each of this series of piano recordings will explore a central musical theme or idea. Beethoven Blues is my interpretation of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, reinterpreting and extending his timeless classics across the genre spectrum…It’s as if Beethoven and I are collaborating.” Some of Beethoven’s later compositions were considered futuristic and he even said they were written for upcoming generations. Batiste’s hybrid concept brings it into the 21st century with arrangements that capture an essence of Beethoven’s style wrapped in a kaleidoscope of embellishments and rhythmic punch, such as 7th Symphony Elegy and Moonlight Sonata Blues where shifts of meter create a new age twist of the work’s opening triplet motive.
If Liszt’s transcriptions for piano of Beethoven symphonies seem illuminating, then 5th Symphony in Congo Square turns this staple into a palette of upbeat rhythmic swing tinged in blues harmonization. In the booklet, Batiste writes that Beethoven’s music has an aspect of blues in it and that, “Beethoven’s music was deeply African. Rhythmically, structurally, melodically, emotionally, compositionally he is the gold standard.” A century later, Dvořák echoed the belief that African-American musicians had great impact on the American musical-cultural experience.
Other album highlights include the so-called Waldstein sonata, Op. 53 of which Batiste’s take is bursting with fistfuls of nonstop sonic beats, which is what some performances of the technically intense work can sound like if played in tutta forza blur on a modern grand or even historic fortepiano of Beethoven’s time. Of course, Batiste revisits beloved Für Elise several times, a piece many younger pianists dabble with. His version maintains the work’s metric and melodic integrity in jazz-like riffs and flourishes that swirl around the lengthy Fūr Elise Reverie. There is a sentimental track in Batiste’s American Symphony Theme, the musical leitmotif of a film about Batiste and his cancer survivor wife Suleika, which received a Producers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Motion Picture in 2023.
There wouldn’t be a Beethoven redo without Batiste’s Ode to Joyful tune from the Finale of this composer’s ninth symphony that contains a text with the words, All men shall become brothers wherever your gentle wings hover. His sweet arrangement is an evocation of these words and a reminder of how uplifting Beethoven’s music remains, especially in the hands of Jon Batiste. He says in the booklet, “Ludwig was the truth. May truth be spoken here for all time to hear.”