![]() ![]() Instead, she landed only two nods overall: best country song and best country solo performance for “Camera Roll,” despite the album being reportedly removed from the country categories by the Recording Academy’s genre police. ![]() The 2019 best album winner, Kacey Musgraves, was also eligible again, for her latest LP, “Star-Crossed,” which wasn’t nominated as a body of work. Batiste is in R&B, jazz, American roots, soundtrack (for “Soul”), music video and even contemporary classical for one of the album tracks, “Movement 11” - which is a stretch, since it shares far more similarity to a two-minute jazz improvisation with added strings than it does to its fellow nominees, like the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s knotty orchestral song cycle, “The Only One.” You get a lot of Grammy nominations by qualifying for multiple categories - and a lot of nominations does not guarantee a lot of wins. It also has positive-thinking message songs like “Freedom” and “We Are.” But Batiste’s nightly broadcast exposure clearly has a lot to do with all his nominations someone’s still watching network TV. The album is a serious, thoughtful statement, celebrating New Orleans roots - Batiste is a member of a longstanding musical family - and his own memories of growing up. Like Black Pumas (also nominated this year!), Batiste’s album harks back to vintage soul and R&B, clearly a sweet spot for Grammy voters, although it also ventures toward hip-hop. JON PARELES Batiste is an impressive musician and performer - pianist, singer, dancer - and his album, “We Are,” is a trove of good intentions and good playing, including New Orleans connections with appearances by Trombone Shorty and the Hot 8 Brass Band. ![]() Protest Song: Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye,” which has become the anthem of the protests in Iran, won in a new special merit category recognizing a song for social change.Viola Davis’s EGOT : The actress achieved the rare distinction during the Grammys preshow, becoming the 18th person to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.That means convincing once-overlooked upstarts to show up as elders, Jon Caramanica writes. ![]() Welcoming Rebels : The Grammys need to build bridges between generations.For once, the awards show gave the genre a fitting spotlight. fit 50 years of rap history into 15 minutes. Questlove’s Hip-Hop Tribute : The Roots drummer and D.J.This year, it means Jon Batiste, who is 35, but pointedly carries on the long tradition of New Orleans music, and who in recent years has become an institutionalist, a slightly less progressive version of his bandleader competitor, Questlove of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” That can mean Black Pumas, and it can mean Billie Eilish. JON CARAMANICA Last year, when talking about the ubiquity of the retro rock-soul band Black Pumas, we underscored a now-familiar Grammy sleight of hand: Rather than nominate older musicians well past their prime popularity, the show instead nominates younger musicians who make music in an old-fashioned way. On the other, Jacob Collier got an album of the year nod last time around. Which is to say, was this actually a twist or was this the most Grammys thing that could have possibly happened? I’m torn, because on one hand, it felt like we were moving away from this. Yet seeing him not only in the R&B, jazz, classical and American roots categories but also in the general field - record and album of the year - alongside those I considered shoo-ins (Rodrigo, Eilish, Taylor Swift, Doja Cat) was the sort of surprise that only the Grammys can consistently provide. Yes, Batiste is a genre-crossing multihyphenate who works as the bandleader and musical director for CBS’s “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” He’s already won a Golden Globe and an Oscar (best original score for Pixar’s “Soul,” alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) and is liable to pop up anywhere music is played - even alongside Madonna, as she promoted her “Madame X” concert movie in Harlem. ![]()
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