Three months after bringing some Louisiana flair to the national anthem at the Super Bowl, where he infused the “The Star-Spangled Banner” with his signature jazz piano stylings, Jon Batiste is going on his second headlining tour — and making a stop in Salt Lake City.
Jon Batiste joins the Red Butte Garden concert series
Batiste, a seven-time Grammy winner who wrote the music for the Pixar film “Soul” and was the former bandleader for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” will perform as part of Salt Lake’s Red Butte Garden concert series on Sept. 8, the venue announced Thursday.
The announcement officially rounds out Red Butte’s 2025 summer concert series with 30 shows. Batiste’s appearance at the venue will come a few days after Gregory Alan Isakov and the night before the band Train takes the stage.
“The Big Money Tour: Jon Batiste Plays America” will visit more than 30 venues across the United States, running from late August through the end of October. The shows will feature hits from his catalog alongside new music being performed live for the first time, according to a news release shared with the Deseret News.
Money is valuable because we collectively have decided it to be so. But the things that are eternally valuable and enduring last forever even when the currency changes. That's where the BIG money is. I wrote a new song that I will share on the tour entitled "Big Money" that the… pic.twitter.com/BLDEOQI2bD
— jon batiste (@JonBatiste) May 15, 2025
Batiste has described the upcoming show as “creative church.”
“We’re living in a complicated time, and music has this incredible ability to reframe what we’re feeling, to help us keep going,” he said in a statement. “These shows are meant to be healing, liberating, and unforgettable.”
The musician, who hails from Louisiana, is known for blending genres in his performances — just as he did at the Super Bowl and for his eighth album, “Beethoven Blues,” where he paid tribute to his classical music upbringing by reimagining some of Beethoven’s signature works.
“At the heart of what I’m about is representing the cultural music I come from and taking responsibility to push it forward,” Batiste said in a statement. “That’s jazz. That’s blues. That’s soul. That’s country and gospel music — forms born from people coming together, improvising in real time, and expressing something deeper. I can’t wait to channel that energy live every night — it’s where the music hits its truest form.”
Tickets for Batiste’s Red Butte show go on sale to garden members May 16 at 10 a.m. MDT. Tickets will be available to the public starting Tuesday, May 20 at 10 a.m. MDT.
A look at Jon Batiste’s Super Bowl performance
Batiste’s appearance at Red Butte this fall comes several months after he brought a lively, jazzy rendition of the national anthem to the Super Bowl.
As he performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” on one of the biggest stages, he hoped to honor his late grandfather.
“He was the best of this country. He served this country,” the jazz/R&B singer previously told Entertainment Tonight, noting that his grandfather was part of the first wave of sailors to integrate into the Navy. “Just having that legacy in my family and the veterans in my family, the people who served this country, the people who understand what it means to have freedoms and to almost lose them. I’m singing for them and I’m singing for us, and all of our collective love and healing that we need right now.”
“He will be with us, and I know that, I believe that,” he added.
Batiste’s wife, journalist and author Suleika Jaouad, painted the white Yahama piano he played on for the performance just 36 hours before her husband took the stage, per People.
The last-minute artwork came as she was in between rounds of chemotherapy.
“He knew that it’s something that if illness weren’t a factor, I would’ve jumped at the opportunity to do,” Jaouad told People. “And every time I said no, I said it with some sadness and some regret. That’s the beautiful thing about being married, not only to your best friend, but to a beloved creative collaborator, is sometimes you need a little push to do the thing that you actually want to do. And that was the case with the piano.”
Jaouad was also at the Super Bowl to cheer on her husband during his performance.
“I had tears in my eyes and was just so extraordinarily proud of him and so moved,” she told People. “For him to get to be back in New Orleans in this capacity was such a significant milestone for him and for family, so getting to do this with him felt especially meaningful and important.”