Jon Batiste and Taryn Toomey

Jaycee and Taryn sit down with The Class Podcast's first official guest, Jon Batiste.

Jon is a musician, an activist, the band leader on The Late Show with Stephen Cobert, and just had a major role in composing the music for the Disney movie, Soul.

In this conversation, Jon talks about what music is for him and what his sources of inspiration and creativity are.  Jon shares how the Love Riots from his Juilliard days prepared him for his powerful protests in the 2020 BLM marches and how he approached making the music for the movie Soul.

You can listen to his music on Spotify or Apple Music, or watch Soul on Disney+.
Follow him on Instagram @jonbatiste or through his website jonbatisteofficial.com.

To keep up with the hosts of the episode, you can follow Jaycee @jayceegossett and Taryn  @taryntoomey.

Transcript

Jaycee Gossett:

Hi. My name is Jaycee, and welcome to The Class Podcast. We're here to engage in conversation that adds to our mental and emotional toolbox. Every week I'm going to be joined by one of our teachers as a cohost, as we chat with those that inspire us. Thanks for being here.

Jaycee Gossett:

Taryn Toomey, founder and CEO of The Class, we're doing a podcast. It's happening. It's happening right now. I'm so happy that you're here to be my first cohost.

Taryn Toomey:

It is a great, great gift to be able to sit with you, Jaycee. I'm so happy to be here and I can't wait to share this conversation with our community.

Jaycee Gossett:

Me too. You want to tell people who we have the pleasure with of talking to on our very first official episode?

Taryn Toomey:

We got to sit down and talk with Jon Batiste, who is someone I so deeply admire, I was actually a little bit in awe of the fact he said he would sit down with us. He has his plate full, he's a musician, he's a magic, magic activist, band leader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and he just had a major role in composing the music for the Disney movie, Soul. His presence is just something that is to be noted. It's so grounding, and I think you can feel that in just listening to him speak.

Jaycee Gossett:

And this conversation, you're right, it's so special. It gets deep, it gets profound, there's little surprises that happen in it and Jon has so many nuggets of deep wisdom to share with us.

Taryn Toomey:

Yeah. He really did. He really did. So let's go ahead and dive in.

Jon Batiste:

Hey!

Jaycee Gossett:

How's it going?

Jon Batiste:

All right, how you doing?

Jaycee Gossett:

We're so, so honored to be chatting with you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Jon Batiste:

Yes indeed. Thank you.

Taryn Toomey:

I'm a little tongue tied. Sometimes words have limits, so I just thank you from my heart . It's such an honor to have you chat with us and spend time. And I like this set up, you're really inspiring me to do something new in my apartment here.

Jon Batiste:

Oh yeah, with the...

Taryn Toomey:

Backdrop and a piano.

Jaycee Gossett:

I like that landscape, whatever that is.

Jon Batiste:

It's from the French countryside, the energy.

Jaycee Gossett:

Beautiful.

Taryn Toomey:

We were wondering a question. May we ask you if you would be able to sing Amazing Grace?

Jon Batiste:

Oh yeah. Yes. (Jon begins playing the piano) That's a nice one, you see? (playing piano) I said... That's a nice tune.

Jaycee Gossett:

I mean I... No words. It is such an honor to welcome you into this space, Jon. To connect with you and share your... I'm just so teary from that...the medicine, really, it's so healing. But sharing your wisdom with our listeners, thank you. Thank you, Taryn, for being here. We're just going to jump on in and see where we go and how our conversation unfolds. Jon, this transmission that emanates from you, this just transcendent, beautiful energy that comes through in all the things that you do as an artist, as a musician, a composer, an educator, a speaker, a leader, a performer, producer, I could go on and on and on... That comes through, that touches people on all the levels. I mean we feel it just being in the space with you. What is happening for you in this space? Where do you go? What are you connecting with? What is coming through?

Jon Batiste:

The vibrations. You get the feeling of the thing and then you want to share the feeling. And the thing comes from somewhere that you don't know but you have known. And you hear it and you feel it and that's why I love music because it doesn't say it. It is a feeling. And that thing comes across behind the words even when there's lyrics. That thing comes through the notes and that thing comes from the vibrations of people being together in the room listening to the music.

Jon Batiste:

And I just try to create what I remember that feeling to be in its purest form. It's not even just a feeling, it's being. Because when you are present, it's already in the room before you do anything. That's the key of music. It's not to dominate the room but to come into union with the room and all of the people that are there. So that's really what I try to do. It's hard to do that all the time with a lot of the noise. There's a lot the noise and there are the mammoth mechanics of how everything...

Jon Batiste:

It's mammoth mechanics built on a lie. So you got all of these different mechanisms that are set up for us to coexist in ways that are not true to who we are. And that's the deep part about music is because it can't lie to you. So, I mean, I know that's a long answer to the question but I think what I try to do is exist in the space of that divine instinct that I have every now and then. I'm lucky enough to have it and that's a blessing but then to share it is the process. And that's all through the speaking or the music or writing or whatever it is. That's just the process, you see?

Jaycee Gossett:

Do you remember this divine instinct, as you call it? And you said, playing what you remember in its purest form the music to be. Do you remember the earliest moment you felt that divine instinct in you as a child?

Jon Batiste:

Yeah, I think it was, from other people sharing it with me, that's the great thing about seeing someone exist and share their creativity or their art or their life experiences. It gives you inspiration. And it's not just from them, it's from all of the people who poured into them and the lineage that led into them. The combination of their being, then influences you. And then it goes on and on over time. So I think it wasn't really a feeling that I had within myself, it was something that somebody shared with me, I can't even remember who it was. I just always remember feeling that when I was coming up hearing musicians play, and wondering just how do they do that? How they do it? How is that feeling? How does that exist in the space? How do I create that feeling in the space?

Jaycee Gossett:

Yeah Taryn, I was going to say like for you, there is in what you do in the spaces you create very much about divine instinct and tapping into something that is present there. What's that experience like for you?

Taryn Toomey:

Well, I was just feeling Jon speak. And what we talk about in class all the time is bypassing the mind. And moving into a different sense of feeling and the thoughts about a story are the thoughts about a story, as opposed to feeling it, feel what it is. And I refer my connection to the unseen, or people call it God or whatever, fill in the blank, whatever resonates. I call it divine. And I know that when I'm in a state, where I'm not in my mind, I'm in a connection where something can move through me. And it's a felt sense.

Taryn Toomey:

People can feel it. It's different than thinking about it, it's a feeling. And I think when one is connected into that space, like what you're saying, Jon, it's felt through all of the cells of everyone in the room, and then you're in this state, where you're able to channel from a different space of understanding our own divinity as individuals, as collective, and creating a safe enough space for all of us to access that part of ourselves. You use music, I use music and movement, not that I'm a singer, but copilot, to understand how to get to the essence of what actually fulfills your soul, as opposed to the coding from the world of what you should or should not do to feel a certain way. And people feel that when you're disconnected, so it really resonates, Jon.

Jon Batiste:

What a mind is something that's tricky, because to have a mind is to have the feeling of knowing. And it's hard to know everything, it's impossible. You know your experience, and then there's the other billions of people, and they have their experience. And that whole range of knowing is so vast that no one can ever know. So the thing that actually connects it to real knowledge, is the intuitive sense of all of us. And plugging that through a spiritual connection, it's almost like a mega computer or circuit board where we're all plugged in. And if you can connect to that, then you actually will know more in the mind. But it's counterintuitive. And that's what I find to be the great alignment. If you can find a way to connect... That's it there.

Taryn Toomey:

Yeah, the idea of you saying we don't know. We talk about this in class often that it's the work of the class is not a mentality at all, where we tell people what to do. You live in your body, only you have experienced what has gone on in your life and you have your own signature, whatever, it's response or not. And being able to bring yourself into your presence, into your consciousness to connect to a higher divine, from the words that I use. Understanding that when your mind is going and going and the thoughts are just on rapid fire. You're one thought away from your presence, when you're in your mind.

Taryn Toomey:

So obviously the mind is a wonderful tool. It keeps us alive or... But understanding How to work through some of the coding of the things that keep us in a place of feeling separate from that, that's the interesting thing. And I want to segue this into something. In my work I know that when I do something, and I'm connected to the, I don't know why I'm doing this, the great humility of I do not know, but I'm here. And I'm in my surrender to allow in whatever it is to move through. It starts with one thing as an expression of my heart and my truth.

Taryn Toomey:

And then later, when I look back on it, I realize it's almost fascinating to see that was a seed of something that later became a much larger expression, something that was deeply connected to the unseen, and my connection to the spirit and source. So I wanted to chat with you a little bit about the love riots, because when I was reading about them, it really felt like that's a bit of what's going on with you. That you started those many, many years ago. And then after the brutal murder of George Floyd and the reemergence of the BLM movement, you brought the vibrations of music and love to the street to confront police brutality and racial injustice.

Taryn Toomey:

Now, back then, when you first started them, you probably had no idea that is what was going to end up emerging from that. And it was really magnetizing to see how you could hold the space for the polarity, people grieving and mourning. And with just so much pain in their body, and you were still able to uplift and invoke this feeling of love. And it was just such a powerful moment.

Taryn Toomey:

And if you wouldn't mind, I wanted to read a quote of something that I pulled that I thought was really powerful. When you were doing one of them. You said "There's always going to be trouble in the world, there's always going to be evil in the world. But if we stop acting on the side of good, then everything goes and we lose all that we've worked for. And love in the world is the thing I believe in, I don't believe in trying to change people who don't want to change, but I believe that everyone has love in them. So all we have to do is put it on display. And you know what's going to happen? Less evil in the world."

Jon Batiste:

That's the truth there. I am not the first person to see it. But it's much harder to walk it. And that's the part where it takes a lot of sacrifice and inconvenience. And that's why we marched. That's why we continue to put our bodies on the line. Because it's important to, not only this time, but for all time, that's the great call of life. Whatever your faith is, in the great call of your life is to choose between this aspect of being, which is to walk in love, to walk in the spirit of love, and truth, or to walk in the spirit of the opposite of that. And that's the great call. That's what we have to contend with.

Jon Batiste:

And I think the love riot, it was a vision that turned into a feeling that was transmittable through the music. The vision was that there was something more that music could be doing in the community, the greater community at the time when I was in New York City for the first time. When I was a kid and I was in school, and I was envisioning music, before it was sold, and put on CDs and t-shirts and commodified. What was music the hundreds of years ago, centuries ago. It was part of the fabric of everyday life.

Jon Batiste:

And you could be walking somewhere and you could see someone playing in a drum circle, or be in your village and that would be a part of a ritual, you would have all of these different forms of worship, or even forms of sacred manifestation. And this has gone on for centuries and only for a short amount of time has music being constricted to use purely as its entertainment and as a commodity, only for a very short history of the time we have been on Earth has that been the purpose of music? So then I started to have this vision. Well, what would that look like today? And how would the music be used? So we started playing for people on the subways for free.

Jon Batiste:

All of my band mates we went to Julliard, and at the time we leave from the Julliard platform which was on 66 Street at the time, and it was a one train stop, we ride the one train from 66th Street, all the way up to Harlem, they will ride it back to Columbus Circle, catch the L go into Brooklyn on L, come back, then we get back on A train, go back up to Harlem, where we were living in at the time, and we'd just be playing for people all along that route, for free. And just seeing the way that people will come up to us and ask what you doing? Why are you doing this? Where are you from?

Jon Batiste:

We started to build a community. And it wasn't a community that was all in one place. But it will be all these people from different boroughs. And then we started playing shows and these people will come to the shows, and we will march from the shows with the audience. And much while playing up the street to another place, people would join us along the way, and then the community will grow and it will grow and it would grow. And over years it would grow when we would tour around the world and we would do these things. And the vision started to become something that I had a formula for. And the formula is rooted in truth. So it's not a formula of manipulation.

Jon Batiste:

I almost like to call those, it's like a spiritual equation, in my faith is of lot of understanding of different spiritual equations, whether it's to cast out demons or whether it's to bring people light and heal people. And there's a way that things work in the universe. That's why mathematic is so mystical and essential to everything. So it's an equation to a way things come together. So that's what I started to discover, just without knowing that that's where I was going, that was the equation.

Jon Batiste:

And it can be applied to problem solving in different facets of life, including when we want to protest. It can be uplifting for people, it can be something that, we've taken it into nursing homes and cancer centers, community centers where people have severed connection with the youth and vice versa. It can be bridge building across generations. And I get moved thinking about it. But that's just the motion of what it can be.

Taryn Toomey:

Well, it really feels like you're connected to divine that seeding of the original formula, but then something's moving through you, and people can feel it. And that's the felt sense of different than what you're talking about. I've heard you talk about commodifying, music and all of that. And then our entertainers end up getting sick and become stuck in rehab centers, because the feedback from the world is too much and they're not aligned and the whole thing that happens.

Taryn Toomey:

But it's interesting, because you can really feel it with you. I know that a lot of people have said that. There's something that's moving through you, it's a channeling of sorts. And my sense is it continues to grow, and even the movie that you just read the Soul and the cadence of the ways that things have unfolded for you, and what you're doing for humanity, and how you're inspiring. I wonder after those peaceful protests, not so much what it was like when you were leading them, but what was it like when you went home and sat and quiet?

Jon Batiste:

That's funny you mention that because that was really, a lot of my meditation at that time, was about the impact of going from this kinetic and charged energy of a protest to the solitary environment of quarantining and figuring out what happened and how I feel about what happened. And then going back into it, because after George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, all of these things happen at once, and we went out into the street and there wasn't a lot of pre-examination of how we would do this. And this is the way we're going to go... It was a feeling. And we went and we expressed that feeling based on this spiritual equation, this formula of the love riot, which we had cultivated over the last 10 or 11 years, because it was right.

Jon Batiste:

But then afterwards, you get to examine it. And we did it again. We did three other rallies and protest. So I had that experience a lot within one month of just going into it and coming out and I think about a lot of the great philosophers and thinkers who, at that time, we all had to deal with solitude. But many of them pursue solitude, and pursue that sort of separation for epiphany and to get a word.

Jon Batiste:

I mean, if you think about Jesus Christ going to the mountains for 40 days, and fasting, the idea of the complete separation, even from food, allows your body to completely move out of the way, and you have a complete dependence on these things in the logical mind. But once you remove that, and you kind of exceed that sort of existence, you get to a point where now you can convene with the spirits and the divine can speak into you. So I actually thought it was a really good thing, long story short, I thought it was a very good thing.

Taryn Toomey:

A great thing.

Jon Batiste:

It was almost like the type of solitude that would be necessary after something like that, to remain pure in your intentions, whether or not we had to quarantine because of the pandemic.

Jaycee Gossett:

And creating that space too, you're describing this separation as an opportunity for all the stuff that can like take up space and occupy us and block the divine from coming in, and the truth to come in, removing all of that, so that the information can just come in clear, and we can receive it. And to see it manifest with 10,000 people in the middle of Manhattan in a pandemic, you putting your life on the line, following you and your band from Union Square to Herald Square. People staying out until midnight, this movement that really just inspires so many people and some of the people I know that we're blessed to be in that space that you created, Jon, described it as just being a part of this family.

Jaycee Gossett:

Feeling like they were part of the special family and that it was all done with a smile, even though we're facing these unforgivable acts. And yet this river of love just flows through you. And I think like, what I would love to offer to some of our listeners is in the face of these unforgivable acts, where you have this ability to keep this current of love coming, how can we do that? How can we learn to do that a little bit more, to forgive and come to love when there is just that evil and just unforgivable acts.

Jon Batiste:

Well, first, I think you have to have certain circles of support, that are designated for certain things. A friend is a great thing to have, and the way that you can express or vent frustration in the healthiest sense is important. But I think the bigger thing that I've been working out is this idea that if you feed something, that's what grows in our mind, in our heart, just the whole flesh, the aspect of ourselves is so open. You see it in children, it's amazing.

Jon Batiste:

I look at my nephew, and we're programmed to be so open, we take so much, so much every day, all of the just kind of micro expressions of people we see on the street, when we pass them. If you on the phone with a friend, and they're going through something and you want to be there and you take that on, and then you have your family and you have your ambition and your ideas and all these things are hitting you and then you have the unexpected. All these aspects of your existence of being fed constantly. So you have to counterbalance that.

Jon Batiste:

And you almost have to shield yourself from lots of it. It's amazing how much we're constantly being sold to, advertised through, used and manipulated on so many levels that when something happens, that's tragic even the collective grief and processing that we have typically gone through together as a nation is segmented. And then that leads to more disconnection as things unfold, and more division. So it's a very tough time to shield yourself from all of it. But if you feed yourself too good things and meditate on the great things that exist in the world, which will always be there. That's a way of actually gaining perspective and breaking down those... It's basically taking up the space that the other things could feel. And that's really, as easy of an equation as that is it's very difficult. Every single day is a battle. And you got to watch what you're consuming. And you got to force yourself into spaces of goodness and purity. And that is the best possible remedy that I know of.

Jaycee Gossett:

Are there certain spaces for you Jon, if you go to that help you fill up, that revitalize you, that reinstate that love in the world for you?

Jon Batiste:

Wow, there's a lot. That's the great news of it. That's the great news of it. But there's a lot. Wow. So where do I start? Art and music is always there. I've been going through the Bible again, and writing down just the words that Jesus said. And reading them like a notepad. It's interesting, because there's a lot of debate on that, rightfully so. But it's an interesting thing to do. I've also been reading this book called Seeds of Contemplation, which is about what contemplation is, what it isn't, and how to foster it in your life. It's really, really interesting.

Jon Batiste:

There's musicians who I think are like multivitamins, they're like, some sort of mineral in the earth. That it's an essential thing. Listening to Louis Armstrong, is like taking the mineral of joy. And like 15 minutes a day. Listening to Duke Ellington is just a certain sensuality and sophistication. Like the blending, we don't have a lot of examples of sensual romance and sexuality blended with the sophistication of that. Then you listen to Billie Holiday, and it's just a sense of getting in touch with your sorrow even if you want to cry. Just the crestfallen nature of her delivery and her tone of voice and the resonance of that. Bach is perspective, to Air on a G String, you listen to that, and it's just, this is life, right in front of you unfolding.

Jon Batiste:

Then I've been listening to a lot of Marvin Gaye as well. He likes to put two things next to each other that are perceived opposites. Like he'll put divinity next to almost lowbrow sexuality. But then it makes you question both. Putting on the Greatest Hits record of Marvin Gaye is incredible because you are here like, Let's Get It On. And then the next track is like, What's Going On or Ecology. But anyway, art, I could go into painting. I don't want to go so long. I've been painting. I painted a Yeti cooler the other day. Just like there's so much. It's an overwhelming question. Like what you all do is, these are good things. If we feed that to ourselves, true things, a lot will change about how we're perceiving the events of today.

Jaycee Gossett:

And Taryn, I love how Jon is describing this breaking down of the things that we consume that take up space that bring us away from love and truth. And when I think about the class and I think about this method that came through you, it is a breaking down, it is a dismantling it is a disrupting, of consumption of programming of the things we carry, of the things that we're past. And music has been at the forefront of it always. You knew, for you music has had this medicinal quality. So in the spaces that you create, and your divine connection, that allow people to come and experience that for themselves, which is the greatest gift, it's like you're holding the space for people to experience the space in themselves, rather than telling them what to do or putting anything on them. How do you replenish the soul? How do you revitalize the muscle of love?

Taryn Toomey:

Yeah, it's interesting, because I always want to say I haven't figured it out yet, but I haven't, I don't have it figured out. But my practices of being alone, active alone as I sit on my harmonium and I pray, and I let words come through me as opposed to words that my mind is thinking. I spend time taking care of my physical vessel, I understand that this body I give back one day, and if I'm not taking care of it, and finding balance, for letting that information to come through as opposed to thinking, and I try to really unhook from the feedback from the external world, realizing that a lot of the feedback loops are people feeding the energy of thinking that you need external things to feel fulfilled in your heart and your soul. And at the end of the day, those things are relationships with yourself and relationships with people that have similar felt sense for me of understanding their own divinity, and that we are all on a different ride along understanding our own, and we're at a different cadence, and we bump into each other along the way.

Taryn Toomey:

But it's really, for me, it's been a lot about closing down the noise. Because I've always been the girl that's like, let's create community, let's play music, let's bring people together, let's feel through the senses, let's process, let's process. Process is a process, it's not complaining about your problems, it's processing them. And time for reflection and time to understand when to create separation for something to reveal itself, some new information, or Jon, you called it an epiphany, I always called it a revelation. So it's been creating time and space to really work on this own relationship within myself and with divine.

Taryn Toomey:

42 years later, I'm just getting to learn how to be alone, which I think is super important to understand how to be alone. And not in a way where it creates stagnation, or you're on your phone alone, but actively working on this part of you that's connected. And music's been such a huge thing for me as well. Jon, hearing you say that, and some of these beautiful artists, musicians, healers that are working the massaging of emotional processing through what they're offering.

Taryn Toomey:

I say the same thing in class, and even through trainings, if you wouldn't hang out with that artist, or that musician, and you don't understand their connection to what it is they're sharing, I recommend you don't bring them into the room. Because what's going on with a lot of, as you said earlier, that musicians, it's more of like, just do it to make money, or whatever, and you can feel there's a lost sense of the connection to what it is that they're moving.

Taryn Toomey:

So for us I think we take it very seriously that we're allowing students to come into the room and they're giving us the space to hold a space for them to move their bodies. And that what you're bringing into the space is very important that you're tuned into what it is that artist is tuned into. So for me musics always just been one of the ways that I've healed and processed for my whole life, probably before that. So I'm babbling a little bit now. What else is new?

Taryn Toomey:

So Jon you want to chat a little bit about Soul? What a moment. I watched the movie the other night with my youngest daughter who's nine. And it's funny because I said I say to their father a lot they think I'm crazy. I'm always like, humming and praying and [inaudible 00:35:12]. I'm in my practices in my home. I call it my sacred nest, and I feel safe here.

Taryn Toomey:

And I said, "They think I'm crazy?" And he said "... You're a spiritual mother." So we talk a lot about soul and about connection to divine and felt sense. And Finley we started watching it too late. And we had to turn it off at 10:00 at night because it was a school night. And she woke me up at 5:30 the next morning and was like, Mama, I need to turn that movie back on I have to watch the rest of it. So talk about captivating adults and children and all age ranges. What a beautiful expression of really simplifying in a way what that spark is. And we talked about it after, because for me what spark was, that spark was your spirit. And in my sense of it is that the spirit is the outward expression of soul. And Finley thought it was just the soul that's in the body. So I'm interested to hear your take on that.

Jon Batiste:

Yes, you got to feel the person in the music. You see that? See, these intervals? I wanted to make Music in the film that had the built in frequency of the celestial. And that's certain things like that, that interval, moonlight, stars, when you hear the sound. So I was trying to excavate those sounds, whether it's intervals or chord structures, these chords, that's very pure optimism. You see, you hear it.

Jaycee Gossett:

And feel it.

Jon Batiste:

So if I could put that in the film, and knowing that the character is going to have this look, this, I'm seeing the character even before they fully animated the character, I could see and they were filming me and all these things, I could see kind of what his essence was going to be. And then what would he play like, with those intervals in those common cause? What would he do with them? Like, how would he personalize that, you know what I mean? It's like... He's still optimistic about his dream. So then he would have that sort of pep and zeal with his playing.

Jon Batiste:

And I related to that, because I'm a very optimistic person. As realistic as I like to see things, optimism is the filter. So I've fused all of that into this person. And I think since it's centered around him, and his dreams and his journey, that would make it the most captivating. If he's so fleshed out with all of this beauty and truth at his fingertips that's going to draw people to it. And that was a two year process, amongst many other things, the technicalities of consulting on a film while writing the score. Part of the score, and collaborating with other musicians, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, in this way as remote and then coming together at moments and finding the balance of all of that, I just wanted to make sure that channel, that frequency was through it all. You see, that makes any sense? I know it's abstract. But that was my process.

Taryn Toomey:

It was powerful. You love it. But even when you're saying intervals, you're right, the celestial, the moon, there's that pause of space. Brilliant. I mean, it was really powerful. And thank you. I always have a tendency to be a little inappropriate. So I just wanted to talk about the size of your hands the whole time.

Jon Batiste:

You could see the... Man, my hands, they really captured that.

Jaycee Gossett:

Very much so. So much life, so much just vibrancy and vitality, and just, it's so real, like just beyond. And there's one of my favorite moments in that film is that scene where the character goes into getting in the zone, and the conversation becomes about getting in the zone. And you said, Jon, that getting in the zone is really transcendent. It's almost as if everything that's happening is aligned with the greater force controlling the universe. And God is just pulling the puppet strings and the audience is in the same space on the same frequency. And this is why we play.

Jaycee Gossett:

I think that there's something about that is the closest to the utopia that we may ever get to. And it just is like oh, that moment in the zone where you just you feel that interconnectedness. You feel across space and time all beings, all hearts, all spirits, all souls, all elements, all of nature, all of it just like existing in this incredible space, harmonizing with each other, dancing and singing and wow.

Jaycee Gossett:

And I just wanted for you this getting in the zone because I know, Taryn when you're creating the space and as we do in the class, like we talked about it as being in the zone also. It has this magical quality to it, but as all of the things that you do Jon in your life, is it something you think that we can recreate over and over again? Is it co-creatable? Is it replicable? Like, can we just keep doing it again? And again? Or is it these divine moments that just kind of like calm and go, and we're just blessed to receive the gift.

Jon Batiste:

I think that we have the ability to tap into it. But it's through surrender. And the way that it exists in space and time is counterintuitive to space and time. So we think we have to build and we have to construct these things. And we put deadlines on things. And we have this vision of it based upon where we are in our life. And we think, "Well, I'm this age. Well at this age, I want to have this and that and do this, and I want to be this."

Jon Batiste:

And the actual way, is to live every single day, and exist in that day, and the divinity of that day will cloak itself upon you. And you can exist, and it can take you somewhere that is actually divine that's not from your own doing. And that's a really, really tough thing to do, if you're looking at the logic of the world. So I've always been a believer that you can find that through surrender. It's like the way that people who are very simple in their ambition and their goals, always have the best vibration in their homes.

Jon Batiste:

It's like when I went to Cuba, or even just all over the place, in New Orleans, like my grandmother's house, you go in the house. And it's just a simple house. But the feeling in the house, that's it. That's the kind of thing that you could end up growing. And being the biggest star in the world. And you meet all these people, you go to all these places, but the feeling is never the same as in certain simple spots in existence, like your grandmother's house, or like the small shack where they sell the empanadas in Cuba next to the rumba session.

Jon Batiste:

It's something special about that. And I think that's a clue, that's like a master key. Well, maybe in simplicity, that's where a divine is. The divine is found in simplicity. So that's why... So I was peeping out, I don't remember what chapter. I'm not good with the chapters. But I was writing down the thing that Jesus was saying to the disciples, he said, "You got to leave your belongings and just follow me."

Jon Batiste:

And it's deep because it's like, "Wow, that's an example of the kind of divine shedding." Of just like, "Okay, let me just put all of this to the side. I don't need any of it." If you think about all of the greatest leaders, I guess, when I say leaders, I'm talking about spiritual leaders. Think about the simplicity of their lives and the acuity of their message, it's so specific and direct and it is just the force that keeps them sturdy with all of the distractions around them. So I believe that the zone is there for us and it's found when we surrender and we live in simplicity and follow the spirit and that's going to take us there every time.

Taryn Toomey:

Right there with you. We talk about it all the time in class. Surrender, simplicity for balance. Surrender, I do not know, please show me this. That is what I do in my practices in the morning, I wake up I talk to the divine, I lay down on prostration I turn my palms to the ceiling and I say "I do not know, please show me." Over and over. Especially when I'm in a really tricky place and you're in some sort of mind thing or it's I do not know, I'm here. I'm willing, please show me.

Jon Batiste:

Yes, yes, that's right. Yes.

Jaycee Gossett:

Jon's going to take us out. Jon, I was reading, for 2021 as everyone is putting together what their themes are and goals are and how they want to direct their energy and the path that they want to walk for this year. And some of the words you used were the guiding principles which I feel like If we could all write these down and every morning, read them, say them out loud, wow would so much happen. That the guiding principles for 2021 are being present, being progress oriented, spirit-led, intentional, disciplined, and in service to the forgotten.

Jon Batiste:

Yes.

Jaycee Gossett:

And is there a simple act that we could all just do one thing every day and service to the forgotten? Just like one simple thing.

Jon Batiste:

Listen, that's it. Listen, we are in a cult of business. That's our culture, but you take one minute to listen and it opens up a whole new world. How many times have people who feel forgotten, had a kind of listening ear, somebody lean in and just ask them truly how they are. And listen, that's it there. You see those people and it's devastating to see those people out in the world, committing atrocities, all of these people. And it's the same thing that my spiritual ear is hearing from them. Listen to us. Listen to us. We're here. All of us. When we went to the March, we were saying the same thing. Listen to us. We're here. There's not enough listening. There's a lot of action. But that's what I would say.

Jaycee Gossett:

Well, we're so grateful for you, Jon. And it's been magical to be in this space with both of you. And thank you so much for your time, your wisdom and all you're doing in the world. And we're very excited to also let our listeners know that your first single from your new album is coming out Friday, January 22. It's called I Need You.

Jon Batiste:

Yeah.

Taryn Toomey:

We can't wait to hear it.

Jon Batiste:

Yay.

Taryn Toomey:

[inaudible 00:49:10] singing it.

Jon Batiste:

Hey. Hell yeah.

Jaycee Gossett:

Thank you so much, Jon.

Taryn Toomey:

Thank you, thank you. Be well.

Jon Batiste:

Be well.