Multi-Grammy, Oscar, and Emmy winner Jon Batiste brings a jazz improviser’s touch to the beloved “Song of Storms” from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in a new performance with musician and content creator Josh Harmon. First heard in the game’s 1998 release, the familiar melody is reimagined here as a fluid, jazz-inflected conversation, with Batiste’s spontaneous piano phrasing meeting Harmon’s restrained percussion in a performance that feels both playful and deeply musical.
“Josh is a kindred spirit. He loves classic video game themes, jazz, and New Orleans traditional music just as much as I do,” said Batiste. “He’s also one of the most creative thinkers around, a brilliant drummer, and a joyful spirit in the world. As a child of the ’90s growing up in New Orleans in a musical family, I would often play classic video game themes on instruments and musically rearrange them with my cousins Jamal and Travis. I even recorded ‘Green Hill Zone’ for my Hollywood Africans album. One day, Josh and I should really do an entire album of these themes.”
On the rising popularity of the duo’s “Song of Storms” performance, Harmon said, “This recording represents what human-made music is all about. There was no rehearsal and no discussion of the arrangement beforehand—our version of ‘Song of Storms’ happened spontaneously, in the moment, in a way that’s only possible when real people get together to play music in real time.
“You can hear on the recording how much fun Jon and I are having. Even though the song is only 90 seconds long, the genuine joy on the track is the reason millions of people have already felt such a strong connection to it. That’s the power of music.”
The collaboration grew out of a social media video created during Batiste’s BIG MONEY campaign, where Harmon—known for his boundary-breaking percussion videos—shared footage of the pair performing the track alongside other unrehearsed musical moments. The instrumental highlights a creative crossover between video game composition and contemporary jazz.
