A Grammy-and Oscar-winning keyboardist, singer, and composer, Jon Batiste is an ebullient and highly eclectic performer with a sound that combines the jazz traditions of his New Orleans home with a vibrant blend of funk, pop, and R&B. From 2015 to 2022, Batiste was the bandleader and musical director for CBS' The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He has toured the globe with his own Stay Human ensemble and issued releases like 2013's chart-topping jazz album Social Music. 

A member of the esteemed Batiste musical family, he emerged in his teens as a gifted jazz pianist with a strong grasp of the Crescent City jazz and R&B sound. Batiste has busked on street corners, held music clinics worldwide, and managed to draw multitudes to his wide-open, accessible brand of rhythmic swing on virtually any keyboard instrument he chooses, in any genre. 

Though heralded as a brilliant pianist and organist, his use of the melodica -- which has graced albums by artists ranging from Stevie Wonder and Harry Connick, Jr. to Trombone Shorty -- has become a visible signature of his work. Batiste has earned accolades including Grammy nominations for his rootsy take on "Saint James Infirmary" off 2018's expansive Hollywood Africans and for 2020's Chronology of a Dream: Live at the Village Vanguard. 

He has also scored films, such as Spike Lee's Red Hook Summer and 2020's animated Pixar movie Soul, the latter of which won an Oscar for Best Original Score. He also won the Grammy for Album of the Year for his stylistically cross-pollinated eighth solo album, We Are, in 2021. Another upbeat, genre-crossing pop album, World Music Radio, arrived in 2023.

View all 2024 Biamp Portland Jazz Festival events at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and the Newmark & Winningstad Theatres.