The Batiste family is a large musical family in Louisiana, out in New Orleans. People go to New Orleans, and if they go to any club, four days out of the week I guarantee you that you will find a Batiste playing in the ensemble.
Whatever I do with music, I try to make it align deeply with the values and principles of who I am and what I believe the purpose of my life is.
My sense of style is influenced by how I feel. I want to express myself because they see you before they hear you. You want to come on stage, and what you look like should represent the song you are playing or the set you are about to play or the message in your music.
I'm from Kenner, Louisiana, where music is played for every occasion in life. There's music for being born, there's music for dying... It's just natural. Families get really good because they play a lot together.
The music is really about sharing an experience. That's why we call it Stay Human. It's like we're sharing this genuine human exchange.
Jazz has a tradition that has enriched the culture in America. The intellectualism of it does nothing but make you think on a higher level and make you a better person if you engage in the music and let it do what it does when it is played at its highest level.
I was raised in the Catholic Church, and for me, the thought in the Bible and Christianity, and the spirit within that, is one of the guiding principles in my life.
Jazz has a tradition that has enriched the culture in America. The intellectualism of it does nothing but make you think on a higher level and make you a better person if you engage in the music and let it do what it does when it is played at its highest level.
I was raised in the Catholic Church, and for me, the thought in the Bible and Christianity, and the spirit within that, is one of the guiding principles in my life.
Imagine if you grew up in a place where your lineage was there for a hundred years, and part of the culture was to play music 50 percent of the time. You'd probably have a lot of musicians in your family too.
Jazz can accommodate so many things. Jazz is like the universe: it's been expanding since its creation, and it's connected to everything.
In a live performance, it's a collaboration with the audience; you ride the ebb and flow of the crowd's energy. On television, you don't have that.
I'm from New Orleans, which is all about direct engagement out in the street with all the parades and Mardi Gras Indians and jazz funerals. I'm trying to take that and put it into my generation, a group that doesn't have enough joy and celebration in their lives.
In such a globally connected world, musicians now have the unique opportunity to express all of the cultural 'mash ups' we are experiencing these days. Akin to the blend of cultures that occurred in early 20th-century New Orleans that led to the birth of jazz, I believe that the world has reached a similar cultural turning point.
There's a tradition - in New Orleans it still exists - where people play in the street. People play outside of the venues. Food, music, and that cultural exchange, it happens anywhere.
We played Carnegie Hall, and that was one time where I felt... Carnegie Hall as a legendary, very venerable place to perform. I'd never heard of anyone going into the Hall and kind of standing on the seats and playing throughout the aisles and having the audience stand on the seats. So when we did that in 2013, even for me it was a shock.