Born in Louisiana, Jon Batiste's family tree reads like a who's who of New Orleans jazz musicians, including Lionel Batiste of the Treme Brass Band, Milton Batiste of the Olympia Brass Band and Russell Batiste Jr. of The Funky Meters. His father, Michael, is a bassist who co-founded the Batiste Brothers Band, a funk and soul outfit that once featured 8-year-old Jon as a percussionist before he switched to piano.
At 17, Jon Batiste released his debut album, Times In New Orleans, and went on to study jazz at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City, where he earned his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in 2008 and 2011, respectively. While attending Juilliard, he befriended bassist Phil Kuehn and drummer Joe Saylor, who became his bandmates in the group Stay Human. Starting in 2015, Jon Batiste and Stay Human served as the house band for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Batiste was serious about his studies at Juilliard, but it didn't always look that way to his teachers. In between classes, he could often be found wandering the hallways playing a melodica, which gave the administration the false impression he was clowning around, but he was just eager to perform. Once he started playing the instrument on streets and subways, he was inspired to form Stay Human, a band that also entertained the public through free impromptu performances called love riots.
Stay Human introduced their brand of "social music," a mixed bag of jazz, R&B, funk, and gospel, through their guerilla-style love riots on the streets of New York City. The concept is based on Batiste's belief that music is a unifying force that's unique in the way it can draw together people of disparate backgrounds and inspire a shared understanding. Their 2013 debut album, Social Music, reached #1 on the US Jazz Albums chart. They performed its single, "Express Yourself," on The Colbert Report, which prompted the host to invite them to be his house band when he took over The Late Show in 2015.
Batiste stepped down as bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2022 to focus on his solo career, leaving Louis Cato to take his place. Stay Human were rebranded Louis Cato and the Late Show Band for the next four years until Colbert's show ended its run. In 2026, they adopted the name Louis Cato and the Great Big Joy Machine.
At his mother's suggestion, Batiste switched from drums to classical piano when he was 11 years old. Outside of his weekly lessons, he honed his skills by transcribing songs from '90s video games, including "Green Hill Zone" and "Casino Nights Zone" themes from Sonic The Hedgehog and music from Street Fighter Alpha and Final Fantasy VII.
While the piano is his primary instrument, Batiste plays the guitar a lot while he's on the road, which inspired his guitar-based album,
Big Money, in 2025. That same year, he
told The Current how the guitar is a storytelling instrument that connects with listeners on a different level. "The stringed instruments have a different frequency and a different way that they impact the soul, and the guitar is the one that I think we're most open to and most resonant with in this time," he explained.
Big Money won the award for Best Americana Album at the Grammy Awards in 2026.
Batiste collaborated with Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to compose the soundtrack for the 2020 Pixar animated film Soul. The story follows Joe (Jamie Foxx), a middle-school band teacher who dies before he can achieve his dream of becoming a jazz pianist but discovers the true meaning of life in the afterlife. For Batiste's role in crafting the jazz segments, he explained his goal "was really to create something that felt authentic as if it were a real jazz band while also being accessible to all ages."
The trio won a raft of awards for their work, including both the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Original Score in 2021, and the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media in 2022.
With 11 nominations, Batiste was the most-nominated artist at the Grammy Awards in 2022. With five wins, he also took home the most trophies, including Album of the Year for
We Are and Record of the Year for "
Freedom."
Batiste married Suleika Jaouad, a musician and journalist, in 2022. The pair started dating as teens around the time Jaouad was fighting leukemia for the first time. While Batiste's solo career was on the rise, Jaouad's cancer returned. The 2023 documentary
American Symphony chronicles a year in the life of the couple as Batiste composes his first symphony and supports his wife through her health battle.
The piano ballad "It Never Went Away," which Batiste wrote for the film, won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written For Visual Media in 2025. It was also nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards in 2024 but lost to "
What Was I Made For?" by Billie Eilish from
Barbie.
Despite the extra t in his surname, New Orleans composer Harold Battiste was an elder cousin of Jon Batiste's. He worked as an arranger on several notable recordings, including Sam Cooke's "
You Send Me," Barbara George's "I Know (You Don't Love Me No More)" and Sonny & Cher's "
I Got You Babe." Battiste was also the musical director for the latter's popular variety series in the 1970s. While the younger Batiste probably won't be covering Sonny & Cher tunes any time soon, he does share a connection with Sam Cooke. The soul singer's granddaughters, The Womack Sisters, sing on the title track to
Big Money.
Batiste shows up in a number of TV shows and movies playing himself, including the 2010 HBO series Treme and the 2026 movie The Devil Wears Prada 2, but he's also taken on some actual acting roles. He played an organist in Spike Lee's 2012 drama Red Hook Summer and jazz singer Shug Avery's (Taraji P. Henson) husband in the 2023 film version of The Color Purple. He also portrayed famed '60s session keyboardist Billy Preston in the 2024 movie Saturday Night, for which he also composed the score.
