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Beth Sacca’s Photo Series Pays Homage to Jon Batiste’s Influences ahead of Big Money Album.
Jon Batiste has never been an artist concerned with becoming a sign of the times. Rather, his music has always felt true to the roots of his musical lineage, to the songs on which he was raised. With his new Big Money album, he wanted visuals that could share his inspiration, that could honour not only the icons that shaped him, but also the era.
That’s what led him to Beth Sacca.
Big Money is an album composed of nostalgia and irony – a jazzy Americana score, delivering dark themes to an upbeat tempo. A blending of light and shadow. A testament to how not so much has changed in the time between the humble origins of New Orleans Blues and Batiste’s modern interpretation.
"That's what led him to Beth Sacca."
Sacca’s photography shares Batiste’s interest in the past. Whilst never explicitly period pieces, she always favours retro styling and composition, and casts absorbing faces that you can imagine finding in dusty photobooks or archived magazine cut outs. Her images embrace a composed naturalism. Insignificant moments of spontaneous life – eating pizza at a diner, waiting for a ferry, watching your ice lolly melt in the sun – made to feel beautiful. It’s nostalgia, less for the celebrities or even the music of the past, but instead for the timeless, mini-stories that make up ordinary people’s lives.
These everyday stories keep nostalgia from feeling hollow. They give it complexity and a rich character.
Sacca and Batiste began with straight homage, replicating the framing of iconic images featuring some of Batiste’s heroes. Duke Ellington in a broad, double breasted suit, looking to camera. Light dramatically striking the eyes of Nina Simone. Johnny Cash in a town hall space, leaning against a stool, the tip of his leather cowboy boots against thin floorboards. And Chuck Berry with his larger than life guitar, relishing the spotlight.
But pure recreation wasn’t going to be enough. Capturing the energy of the era required more than similar blocking and framing. Sacca added details. Two men over Batiste’s shoulder. A hand reaching out of the dark, ignored by the singer. A small trio peppered in fold out seats – an elderly man, a gentleman in a suit, and a woman in a leather jacket, her back turned coldly away from Batiste.
The effect is images that honour the icons whilst also telling stories of their own. They inspire questions. They imply a darkness running through the backgrounds of these photos. Out of nostalgia emerges original characters and a fresh perspective that, as the music does, blends the light and the shadow. That’s Big Money.
"That's Big Money"
MindsEye has also helped weave this story into the other album visuals. These photos are released alongside a music video for the album’s titular track, directed by French duo Zite et Léo.
In the video Batiste may not be impersonating Simone, Cash or Berry, but he’s still harking back to an icon of the era. The old school preacher, arms raised to the sky, holding the attention of a baying crowd with his own peculiar truth.
The tone is lighter than that of the photos and there’s more excess to Batiste’s look and performance, but that theme of a nostalgic, upbeat sound covering for dark, timeless themes plays on.
Article words by Michael Upson
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