Director: Matthew Heineman
Stars: Jon Batiste, Suleika Jaouad
Synopsis: Explores a year in the life of musician Jon Batiste.
Jon Batiste is someone that a general audience would know as the bandleader of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, but there is much more to him than that. A New Orleans native, Baptiste oozes charisma as a musician, one who plays with a joy that is infectious to others with every block he plays on. Famously playing with a melodica, an instrument part-trumpet and part-keyboard, he and his band, Stay Human, started with Colbert when he was only 29 years old. But there was always more to Batiste, which is what American Symphony discovers.
From director Matthew Heineman (The First Wave, Retrograde), this documentary goes in depth with Batiste’s life, particularly in his relationship with his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad. Jaouad’s story alone is worth its own documentary as she struggles with a rare form of leukemia that has consumed her for over a decade. Heineman is there to capture the battle when the cancer returns and she has to endure another bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy, which takes its toll on Batiste as well while he’s writing a new musical piece for Carnegie Hall, with the film’s title.
The highs and lows are not hidden as Heineman places us with them in their most intimate moments, but it’s when Batiste is playing his music and working with his ensemble that the best comes out from him. Batiste is made for something bigger, as evidenced by his bold approach to music and incorporating everything into one symphony for the world to hear. At the same, his album, “We Are”, is a critically acclaimed, Grammy winning triumph, yet Batiste hears from his critics that it is not real jazz or that his album is not deserving to win over major artists. Batiste is still an underdog looking for the respect that he deserves.
This showcase of the other side of an amazing American artist brings a better appreciation to what Batiste has been, especially for someone like myself. I never knew his background, like forming a band that would play in the subway or walking across the street, or the fact he had this lengthy relationship with this unfortunate situation which makes it hard for both him and Jaouad. In fact, Jaouad has done a TED Talk about living with this form of leukemia, which as she wrote in her book, “Between Two Kingdoms,” she was given a 35% chance to live. Even with her current second battle, Jaouad continues to defy the odds. She and Batiste are deeply committed to each other, even allowing Heineman and his cameras to their very private wedding.
American Symphony is a simple but moving story of the spirit of music and the defiance over death through love. By the end, any appreciation for Batiste will be increased and his story with Jaouad will be raised because of the depths they have gone to endure through the pain and allow us to be with them. It is about going through hell as well as enjoying the small things, like sledding down a hill. As this couple is still in their 30’s, these are young people who are in their prime with the best yet to come and their time is now.
