"Oooh that’s nice” said Jon Batiste over Zoom, playing a short melody. And he’s not wrong.

Batiste has reason to feel extra confident after the year he’s had, which includes winning an Oscar for his work scoring the hit Disney Pixar animated film, "Soul."

“It's always been jazz at the root," said Batiste. "Jazz, soul music, gospel, all of the, what I call, the root forms of American music, so that's always a part of my process. But with this film, it was a great opportunity to bring that into the mainstream."

As co-composer and collaborator on the film, getting inside the head of Soul's main character Joe wasn't hard.

“He's a jazz musician in New York, and it's about jazz and the existential questions of life -- that so fits me. It feels like something that I was born to do,” said Batiste.

Batiste also kept the music going during the pandemic as bandleader on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," and out on the streets as part of the social justice protests that swept the nation. Batiste called it a natural extension of what he does with his band Stay Human.

“What we do is called ‘social music’ and what that's all about is bringing communities together, and it's about reaffirming humanity,” Batiste said.

His latest song is called "Freedom."

“The song Freedom really connects with what's happening right now as we're coming back to being able to be in a world and be free to go and connect with each other,” said Batiste about the song that feels retro and new at the same time.

Years ago, late jazz publicist Phoebe Jacobs, who worked with all the greats including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan, said at the time unknown performer Batiste was “going to be a star.”

“I don't know what she saw in me,” he replied.  “Maybe she saw that I had something that from the grace that she's seen in her time. Maybe she saw something of that in me, a potential of that. And if that was the case, I'm honored."

He was known as Jonathan Batiste back then. 

“It was similar to when you hear someone like a Beyoncé talk about this kind of alter ego or this person that — it's who they are but it's an elevated or plussed version of aspects of who they are. A lot of people come up with a stage name. I didn’t want to do that," he said. "I’m a performer, and it's this alter ego in a way, but it's me. And I thought about that and I was like well, instead of Jonathan it's just Jon Batiste."

And Jon Batiste is certainly a star.