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This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. Christmas has inspired some great songs in every genre

and some really bad ones. Today we'll hear some great ones. We'll start with John Batiste at the piano,

playing, singing,

and talking about some of his favorites. It's part two of the session we recently recorded with

him. Batiste was the bandleader and music director of the late show with Stephen Colbert,

from its premiere in 2015 until 2022. That same year, his album, We Are, received 11 Grammy nominations in seven different

categories and won five Grammys, including Album of the Year. His new album, Beethoven Blues,

features his reimagininges of Beethoven compositions. He also wrote the score for this year's film

Saturday Night about the first SNL broadcast,

and he appears in the film as musician Billy Preston, the first musical guest.

A documentary about Batiste called American Symphony is now nominated for a Grammy for Best Music Film,

and Batiste is nominated for best song written for visual media.

Here's the interview.

So, as we speak, Christmas is coming up soon.

And I don't know how you feel about Christmas music.

In my opinion, like, some of it is just, like, really fun.

Some of it is kind of transcendent.

And some of it is so irritating, causing like the worst earworms.

...