“Freedom,” Jon Batiste’s follow up to “I Need You,” his #1 Adult Alternative debut single, is joyous and joyful, fun, colorful, high energy, with a video that includes smart clothes and jazzy dance moves. Irresistible.
The song is a tribute to New Orleans, Batiste’s home town, and in a statement released to Apple Music, he credits artists such as James Brown and Elvis Presley as able to “unlock(ing) something in people that they were trying to hold in. These people became beacons of freedom, and you look at the way they move and the way they express who they are on stage. That becomes the way that you want to be in life.”
“Freedom” almost has the intensity of James Brown’s 5-minute tour de force performance of “Night Train” at the famous T.A.M.I. show, Santa Monica Auditorium, 1964, which probably intimidated the Rolling Stones, who were also on the bill, but were not yet world-famous.
“Freedom” is #16 on Adult Alternative radio airplay.