MEXICO CITY.- The agenda of Jon Batiste It is full of memorable events. This weekend he will double headline the first edition of the music festival Montreux Jazz Festival Miami by performing on two consecutive nights and then heading to the Oscars for which he is nominated in the Best Original Song category for It Never Went Away from the documentary American Symphony. You talked about these presentations and the Academy Awards.
I’m excited to bring the festival to Miami. Miami has a very strong and rich culture and the festival has a strong and rich culture, so it will be something very special and unique in the world; “I think it will become a major destination for culture and art,” he said in a recent video call interview.
In his concert on Saturday he will perform with Brazilian star Lia de Itamarac.
She is the queen of ciranda, a very special form of carnival and traditional music, and she is one of the pioneers and has never performed in the United States, Batiste highlighted. We performed together for the first time in Brazil last year and we have become friends and she is very important to the culture, so she wanted to celebrate her.
Jon Batiste, jazz and Miami
For Batiste, Miami has everything to be a jazz capital like Montreux, Switzerland, where the European version of the festival has been held since 1967 and in which the musician has had the opportunity to participate on several occasions.
I think it will have everything great that the festival in Europe has, but also the fact that it is in Miami gives it something that the festival in Europe doesn’t have, which is this base of musicians and such a vibrant city with cultural life that really amplify the festival and that is something that excites me too, he noted.
For each of his presentations, Batiste promised that he will have a different repertoire and guests, as well as dancers and musicians.
At the moment we feed off the energy of the public. The public is part of the presentations I make, it is very important, it is a reciprocal emotional relationship, he noted. It will be a very special performance every day.
Cuban musician Cimafunk, Brazilian star Daniela Mercury, The Wailers from Jamaica and Emily Estefan, daughter of Emilio and Gloria Estefan, will also perform at the festival.
Every artist at the festival helped book it or recommended it, so it’s hard to choose one, because I was very involved in making it what it is today, Batiste said of who he would like to see if he were in the audience.
His emotions will continue next weekend when he arrives for the second time as a Oscar nominee and as an artist with a musical number for the March 10 ceremony in Los Angeles.
After winning his first Academy Award for the original score for the animated film Soul in 2021, now compete for the song It Never Went Away from the documentary American Symphony. The film, directed by Matthew Heineman, portrays Batiste’s achievements, such as his multiple Grammys and Oscar, while revealing his personal struggles, such as the leukemia suffered by his wife, author Suleika Jaouad.
“It is an incredible honor, there is so much hard work in my art,” he said. All of that is great because it takes so much to make it happen, it takes so much to be able to share it, I hope it is something meaningful for people and helps them with their lives. It’s great to feel that it has resonated with so many people.
The documentary won the Producers Guild of America Award last weekend and is executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama. But it started as a small project, with Batiste and his wife being followed only by a camera to which they got used to after a month.
Alliances
It started to feel like they weren’t even there, you forget that they are filming you and it becomes second nature, he said. Since we had no association with Netflix or the Obamas and it was just the filmmaker and my family and we were filming without knowing that it was going to become a movie or without thinking that it was something that the world would see, we didn’t really feel the pressure, we didn’t feel that it was going to be. be the film it is today.
The moving It Never Went Away It began as a lullaby for Jaouad when he was in the hospital. Batiste picked it up when they were close to releasing the film.
I turned it into a song because we needed a theme for the end of the movie, it was something we added at the last minute before the movie. Premiere, we couldn’t find the right ending for the movie, he pointed out. So I went back to the lullabies I wrote for Suleika when he was in the hospital. So the material from which the song originated came from the real and honest experiences that the film is about.
Batiste asked to be attentive to the Oscar red carpet on which he plans to walk with great style.
It’ll be nice, I’m excited, I have several outfits that I’m going to wear: the suit for the live performance, the look for the red carpet and the look by the time we are seated (in the seats) and that style will probably be something with Suleika, he said. We are going to be together at the ceremony, we are going to be combined and have great, great coordination, so look for us on the red carpet and at the ceremony.
FUENTE: AP
