<\/p>\n
AKRON, Ohio \u2014 Masterful. Mesmerizing. Magnificent.<\/p>\n
Sunday night at the nearly sold-out Akron Civic Theatre<\/a>, New Orleans native Jon Batiste<\/a> brought a two-hour spectacle that turned a concert into something closer to a spiritual revival show where gospel, funk, jazz and Creole joy collided in \u201ca circus of love.\u201d<\/p>\n Been to a lot of shows in my lifetime. I\u2019ve forgotten more than I remember, but I\u2019ve never witnessed anything quite like I did Sunday night.<\/p>\n No wonder demand for Batiste\u2019s 2024 performances<\/a> at the Cleveland Museum of Art<\/a> knocked their website offline. This is one night of music I will never forget. <\/p>\n As a bandleader and multi-hyphenate, Batiste was a charioteer-preacher, steering as many as a dozen musicians at a time through a traveling salvation show. <\/p>\n His parishioners? Dancing in the pews, natch<\/i>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a concert,\u201d Batiste told the crowd mid-set. \u201cThis is a spiritual practice.\u201d And he wasn\u2019t exaggerating. From the first note of \u201cLet God Lead,\u201d the room became less of a performance space and more of a revival tent. <\/p>\n His leadership style on stage\u2014equal parts maestro and mad scientist\u2014embraced unpredictability as a creative engine. There was chaos, yes, but a managed chaos, the kind that breeds innovation.<\/p>\n Batiste\u2019s band, a 10-piece force of brass, percussion, strings and soul, followed every left turn like seasoned acrobats. Behind his piano, guitar and melodica, Batiste directed an energy that was both ecstatic and exacting. <\/p>\n The show\u2019s heartbeat ran through the lineage of American music. Batiste conjured Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley in some moments; Herbie Hancock or Sly Stone in others. <\/p>\n At all points, he was unequivocally himself.<\/p>\n But this show also pulsed with something much deeper, ancestral and uncontainable; a sonic language that stretched from the Congo to the Mississippi to the Appalachians. It was the audience\u2019s job to keep up. <\/p>\n \u201cWe Are\u201d and \u201cSymphony No. 5 in Congo Square\u201d hit early, the latter an inspired mash-up of Beethoven and Big Easy second-line swing. \u201cLean On My Love,\u201d sung in duet with guest vocalist Andra Day<\/a>, rode a lilting calypso groove before freewheeling into a medley of Wilson Pickett\u2019s \u201cLand of 1,000 Dances\u201d and The Impressions\u2019 \u201cIt\u2019s All Right.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout the night, Batiste fused genres with fearless joy. \u201cBig Money\u201d built around the mantra, \u201cIf we could just get past this one thing\u2026\u201d<\/i> before briefly detouring into Willie Nelson\u2019s \u201cOn the Road Again.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPetrichor\u201d followed\u2014a luminous moment pairing Senegalese rhythms with Appalachian fiddle lines, capped by a jubilant percussion break that felt like a cross-cultural body blow. <\/p>\n That we were treated to djembefola<\/i> <\/b>Weedie Braimah<\/a>\u2014another surprise guest who splits time between N\u2019awlins and Northeast Ohio as an associate professor at Oberlin Conservatory of Music\u2014in that mix, too?<\/p>\n Downright stunning. <\/p>\n The night\u2019s most gut-punching moment came with \u201cCry,\u201d a swampy boogie that exploded into a storm of soul, Batiste howling at the keys while his saxophonist tore into a solo that felt like a prayer for the nation\u2019s grief\u2014a hymn for immigrants and against wrongful imprisonments and indifference.<\/p>\n Batiste later stripped everything down for what he called his \u201cPiano Moment,\u201d a medley that folded the traditional \u201cBlessed Redeemer,\u201d Arlen & Harburg\u2019s \u201cSomewhere Over the Rainbow\u201d and Fats Domino\u2019s \u201cBlueberry Hill\u201d into a hushed meditation on melody, memory and grace. <\/p>\n By the time he slid into \u201cI Need You \/ Night Time,\u201d introducing each band member with a pastor\u2019s warmth, the Civic felt like a full-on congregation.<\/p>\n Then came the encore\u2014a joyous three-part exclamation point that summed up everything Batiste stands for. He began with a medley that wove Scott Joplin\u2019s \u201cThe Entertainer,\u201d \u201cWhen the Saints Go Marching In\u201d and Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u201cHallelujah\u201d into a tender singalong before easing into \u201cButterfly.\u201d<\/p>\n From there, \u201cWorship\u201d became both noun and verb and the interactive \u201cLoveriot\u201d lived up to its name: a cacophonous espirit de (drum) corps<\/i> breakdown \u2014 which spilled from stage to aisles and out into Akron\u2019s autumn chill with a conga line of believers in tow.<\/p>\n If your dream in life ever included the line \u201cOh how I want to be in that number\u201d<\/i> when the saints were to go marching in, Batiste & Co. made it so.<\/p>\n It was revival and riot, church and carnival, a love letter to freedom itself. He wasn\u2019t preaching from a pulpit, he was testifying.<\/p>\n If there was one misstep, it wasn\u2019t musical\u2014it was visual, specifically in the set design. The relentless strobe lighting throughout much of the performance made it feel like being caught in a wash of flash photography. With all that was unfolding on stage, the spectacle didn\u2019t need the distraction.<\/p>\n Still, that was a minor quibble in a night that felt utterly redemptive. Batiste\u2014singer, pianist, saxophonist, composer, bandleader\u2014conducted not just a band but a community. <\/p>\n The Civic pulsed with the sound of people believing in something together, even if only for a couple of hours<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the circus of love,\u201d his declaration read above the stage. \u201cUnder our tent, there is revival and joy.\u201d <\/p>\n And joy, on this Akron night, was in no short supply.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cleveland.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AKRON, Ohio \u2014 Masterful. Mesmerizing. Magnificent. Sunday night at the nearly sold-out Akron Civic Theatre, New Orleans native Jon Batiste brought a two-hour spectacle that turned a concert into something closer to a spiritual revival show where gospel, funk, jazz and Creole joy collided in \u201ca circus of love.\u201d Been to a lot of shows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2118363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2118363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2118364,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118363\/revisions\/2118364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2118363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2118363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2118363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}