Jon Batiste - Black Mozart

Jon Batiste turns Mozart loose on Black Mozart, the second volume of his solo piano series, a playful and largely improvised record that hears the classical canon through jazz, blues and stride.

Following Beethoven Blues from 2024, the project finds Batiste staging a conversation between a composer he clearly reveres and the Black American traditions that shaped his own playing. The session came together in a single day, and that spontaneity is audible throughout, with themes stated, pulled apart and rebuilt on the spot.

"Facile-Batiste" takes the familiar Sonata facile and lets it wander far from the page, while "Alla Turc Movement" sends the famous alla turca theme stomping through a smoky barrelhouse. He also draws on the opening movement of the Symphony No. 40, pulling one of Mozart's most recognizable melodies into very different territory.

Titles like "Alla Blues" and "Gospel Andante" say plenty about where he takes the material, and on some pieces he leaves Mozart behind entirely and simply composes something new. Much of it sounds like it's being invented in real time, because it largely was.

The result is witty and warm, respecting the source while refusing to treat it like a museum piece, and it makes a natural companion to his two Thelonious Monk albums from the same year.