Artist to artist; the 2022 Jazz Fest poster

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - The 2022 Jazz Fest poster captures the sounds of one of this year’s Grammy winners in full color, Jon Batiste, but the idea was already in paint before the trophies hit Batiste’s hands, thanks to an equally popular painter, Terrance Osborne, who has graced the Jazz Fest with his art multiple times before.

Filled with an artist’s palette worth of colors, Batiste’s music video, “Freedom,” won the hearts of the academy at the Grammys, but before it won the award for best music video, Jazz Fest’s poster company, Art4Now, was driven by the music, selecting Terrance Osborne to paint the poster.

“When you look at that video it looks like one of my paintings in motion, so it’s no coincidence that Jazz Fest asked me to do it after seeing that video,” Osborne said.

Osborne is a poster veteran, this iteration is his fourth main poster, in the past, he’s immortalized Fats Domino, Trombone Shorty, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. This year, though, the stars truly aligned as Batiste wracked up nearly a dozen Grammy nominations and took home a handful of gramophones.

“They came to me and said, ‘All right, we want you to be the artist and we want you to do Jon Batiste.’ So, this was before his Grammy nominations, before everyone got, like he’s the man right now,” Osborne said.

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As he does with most of his work, Osborne wanted to make it special, so he picked up the phone and called Batiste.

“No artist has ever spoken to the subject while we’re working on the poster so I asked Jon and I was kind of like is there anything I can put in it that is special to you and he said ‘the number 11′ which as you can see, I put it right above the door. So, he grew up in a house where the address was 11, he was born 11:11 and he was nominated for 11 Grammys, so the irony of that, I had to put 11 in there for sure,” Osborne said.

The painting unveils a host of secrets, embedded in the colors, including the Purple Knights, also featured in the music video.

“So those three Saint Aug members. Jon also said he wanted a lady who had just come home from choir practice, so I threw that in, there’s a bucket boy right here, and this is a combination of my wife and daughter, everybody’s in there,” Osborne said.

Already, the exclusive versions of the poster are selling out, in fact, Osborne said if you want one, don’t wait until the final Sunday.

“It’s probably, I know that it’s my best seller because I’ve never had anything sell out this quickly. I think for Jazz Fest it’s one of the best sellers too,” Osborne said.

Now Osborne is happy to be back out at the fairgrounds, rubbing elbows with the people that love his art, and getting that taste of freedom that comes with the colors, the sounds, and the smells, that sink into your soul at Jazz Fest.

“It’s been two years. People are dying to get back to Jazz Festival and if you go to Jazz Fest you know it’s a big family reunion, right. So, we’re going to see all the people we haven’t been seeing all these years, people are done with covid, they just want to relax get a po boy, drink a beer, listen to some music, and see some artwork so it’s time,” Osborne said.

You can find the poster for purchase online at Art4Now.com.

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