Top 37 Quotes by Jon Batiste

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.

Early American music and early folk music, before the record became popular and before there were pop stars and before there were venues made to present music where people bought tickets, people played music in the community, and it was much more part of a fabric of everyday life. I call that music 'root music.'

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.

I played with Prince in 2010... the America tour. The one with Misty Copeland dancing on top of the piano! But Prince played the piano on that song. But I played two dates with him on that tour. When we played the gig, every couple of songs, Prince would change his clothes.

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.

I think it's important for people to stay human and remember that genuine human connection is more fulfilling than anything that technology has to offer. We all have it within us, and music is something that can bring that out of us.