Jon Batiste Trivia
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48 free Jon Batiste trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Jon Batiste trivia quiz covers the Louisiana piano prodigy from a famous New Orleans musical family who led Stephen Colbert's Late Show band for seven years, scored a Pixar film with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and won Album of the Year at the Grammys with We Are. The easy questions cover the landmarks: his hometown, his band, the talk show, the Oscar and the Grammy sweep. From there the quiz moves through Juilliard, the album recorded entirely on subway trains, the 'love riots', Hollywood Africans, World Music Radio, Big Money and his symphony at Carnegie Hall. The harder half is for the fans who watched every night: the video-game composer he calls an early inspiration, the marching band on the single 'We Are', the Super Bowl anthem, the Madonna street performance, the documentary about his wife's illness, and the Billy Preston role in Saturday Night. Nothing here quotes a lyric; the questions are about the man, the records and the stories. Every answer was checked against Jon Batiste's encyclopaedia entry and its companion articles before publishing. If you enjoy this, try our jazz and Grammy Album of the Year quizzes next.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Jon Batiste was born in Metairie and raised in Kenner, both in which state?
Louisiana
Louisiana runs deep in the family: he was performing in the Batiste Brothers Band as a small boy, part of a dynasty going back generations in New Orleans.
Q 02Batiste led the house band for which talk-show host from 2015 to 2022?
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert first booked him as a guest in 2014, when Batiste got the host and the audience dancing and then led the music out into the street.
Q 03The name of Batiste's band Stay Human refers to the power of live music to counter what?
A disconnected modern society
A disconnected modern society is what the name pushes against: Batiste believes people sharing a live performance can lift each other up.
Q 04Batiste won an Academy Award for co-composing the score of which 2020 Pixar film?
Soul
Soul features his original jazz compositions, written while he was also leading a nightly TV band and sketching out his next album.
Q 05Batiste's We Are took which of the four top Grammy prizes in 2022?
Album of the Year
Album of the Year went to him over records by Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, the first win by a Black artist in 14 years.
Q 06Which two composers shared a 2021 Best Original Score Oscar with Batiste?
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails wrote the film's electronic score, leaving the jazz to Batiste.
Q 07Batiste often roams through the crowd playing which small keyboard instrument, nicknamed his 'harmonaboard'?
Melodica
Melodica: it is blown through a mouthpiece while the keys are played, which lets him leave the piano and lead the band out among the audience.
Q 08At which conservatory did Batiste earn both his bachelor's and master's degrees in jazz studies?
Juilliard
Juilliard later named him one of its first Creative Associates, and in 2022 the former student joined the school's board.
Q 09Before switching to piano at 11, Batiste played what in his family's Batiste Brothers Band?
Drums
Drums came first; after the switch he took classical piano lessons every Saturday until he left school.
Q 10Batiste sharpened his piano skills as a boy by transcribing music from what?
Video games
Video games such as Street Fighter Alpha and Sonic the Hedgehog supplied the tunes he worked out by ear and wrote down.
Q 11Batiste co-wrote and co-produced 'Ameriican Requiem', the opening track of which Beyoncé album?
Cowboy Carter
Cowboy Carter opens with it, and Batiste hailed the record as the moment "where we dismantle the genre machine".
Q 12Batiste attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts alongside which future star?
Trombone Shorty
Trombone Shorty was his schoolmate, and in 2025 both were on the pregame bill when the Super Bowl came to their home city.
Q 13Which New Orleans-born trumpeter grew up in Kenner, the same suburb as Batiste?
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis, like Batiste the product of a musical dynasty, later shared a Jazz at Lincoln Center bill with his younger neighbour.
Q 21Batiste's single 'We Are' features the Marching 100 of which New Orleans institution, his alma mater?
St. Augustine High School
St. Augustine High School opened in 1951 to educate Black boys, and Batiste calls it "a cornerstone in our community".
Q 22Where did Batiste set up a makeshift studio to begin recording We Are in 2019?
In his dressing room
In his dressing room at the Ed Sullivan Theater, because his nightly television job left so little time that collaborators dropped in around the clock.
Q 23Who wrote the liner notes for Batiste's album We Are?
Quincy Jones
Q 14Batiste made his debut at which famous Amsterdam venue in 2007, aged 20?
The Concertgebouw
The Concertgebouw date was a show he produced himself, alongside music clinics he ran in Dutch inner-city schools.
Q 15Stay Human's 2011 album MY N.Y. was recorded where?
On New York City Subway trains
On New York City Subway trains, an idea that grew out of late-night diner talks about how the band could connect with people.
Q 16What does Batiste call the impromptu street performances his band leads?
Love riots
Love riots began by accident, when the band played in the street after a sandwich stop and passers-by started to follow them.
Q 17What was the title of the 2013 album Batiste recorded with his band Stay Human?
Social Music
Social Music is also his name for what he does, playing built to bring people together "in the spirit of community".
Q 18Batiste's 2018 solo debut for Verve, with 'Don't Stop' as lead single, was called what?
Hollywood Africans
Hollywood Africans followed a summer of American festival dates on which he was backed by the Dap-Kings.
Q 19Batiste's cover of which traditional song earned a 2019 Grammy nomination?
St. James Infirmary Blues
St. James Infirmary Blues was up for Best American Roots Performance, an award that went to Brandi Carlile's The Joke.
Q 20Batiste appeared as himself in several episodes of which HBO drama?
Treme
Treme follows New Orleans musicians after Hurricane Katrina, and its soundtrack also used the brass band of his relative Lionel Batiste.
Quincy Jones is one of several mentors on the record, each of them, Batiste said, "instrumental in me becoming who I am today".
Q 24Batiste's 2021 live EP, released exclusively on Spotify, was recorded in one day at which studio?
Electric Lady Studios
Electric Lady Studios was founded by Jimi Hendrix, who died less than three weeks after its opening party in 1970.
Q 25In October 2021 Batiste joined which pop star for a surprise night-time street singalong in Harlem?
Madonna
Madonna led the 2 a.m. parade with him, singing Like a Prayer on the way to a church door, to celebrate the release of her concert film Madame X.
Q 26Batiste premiered his American Symphony in September 2022 at which venue?
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall got the work he wrote as his next move after five Grammys, an Oscar and quitting his late-night bandleader job.
Q 27Which couple served as executive producers of the Batiste documentary American Symphony?
Barack and Michelle Obama
Barack and Michelle Obama came aboard through their company Higher Ground, which acquired the film with Netflix after its Telluride premiere.
Q 28American Symphony follows Batiste's year while his wife battles a recurrence of which illness?
Leukemia
Leukemia had come back after a decade, and the couple married the day before she went into hospital for a bone-marrow transplant.
Q 29Who directed American Symphony, the documentary about Batiste and his wife?
Matthew Heineman
Matthew Heineman also shot and edited the film himself, following the couple through a single year.
Q 30Batiste's 2023 concept album featuring Lil Wayne, NewJeans and Kenny G was titled what?
World Music Radio
World Music Radio is framed as a broadcast by Billy Bob, an interstellar being who beams Earth's music out into the cosmos.