Meet Jon Batiste, new Grammy winner with plenty going on

Jon Batiste wears so many hats he may need a closet for them all; recording artist, bandleader, musical director, film composer, museum creative director, and scion of New Orleans musical royalty. The multi-instrumentalist won five Grammys on April 4 and despite being on TV all week, not many people may know fully.

Batiste composed music consulted on, and arranged songs for Pixar's animated film "Soul," a mid-life crisis movie mixed with a New York jazz fantasia and a body-swap comedy. He won a Golden Globe for the music alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails, and the trio also earned the Academy Award for best original score. For their work on "Soul," Batiste, Reznor, and Ross won the Grammy on Sunday for best score soundtrack for visual media.

Batiste has toured globally with his band Stay Human and made a memorable stop at Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" in 2014. When producers of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" were considering having a house band the following year, Batiste and Stay Human were a natural fit. The mutual respect Colbert and Batiste share is obvious. The bandleader often cheers the comedian's nightly monologue from the piano, appears in segments, and accompanies the musical guests. Batiste stuck with the gig even during the pandemic, coming up with tunes, both original and covers, on the spot.

Recording since he was a teenager, Batiste's albums include "Hollywood Africans," produced by T Bone Burnett, "Anatomy of Angels: Live at the Village Vanguard," and "Meditations," a collaboration with guitarist Cory Wong. His album "Social Music" spent over a month atop the Billboard and iTunes jazz charts, and he also put together the pandemic benefit album, "Relief: A Benefit for the Jazz Foundation of...