This week on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (October 16-20), the host plans to chat with Jada Pinkett Smith (prepare for more juicy gossip fodder about Will!), Rachel Maddow, Talking Heads, and Keegan-Michael Key, while the show’s former bandleader Jon Batiste returns for both an interview and a performance and Caroline Polachek and Daniel Caesar give musical performances. For more on this week’s musical guests, see below:
Caroline Polachek — Tuesday, October 17
The genre-bending alt-pop star is promoting the release of her fourth studio album, Desire, I Want To Turn Into You. While she had previously performed the song “Welcome To My Island” on The Tonight Show, her TV tour was understandably curtailed by that pesky writer’s strike, so she’s picking up where she left off. From Tuesday’s performance, she’ll be off to Miami for the III Points Festival, then continuing her Spiraling Tour in Asia and Oceania, as well as playing C2C Festival in Italy.
Daniel Caesar — Wednesday, October 18
Daniel Caesar has had one hell of a bounce-back year. After dropping his comeback album Never Enough in April, he followed up by announcing his Superpowers World Tour, which launched in August and is concluding this week at the Met in Philadelphia. The album, which reached No. 14 on the US Billboard 200, has been shortlisted for the 2023 Polaris Music Prize.
Jon Batiste — Thursday, October 19
The Louisiana native is returning triumphantly to his old stomping grounds after releasing his seventh studio album, World Music Radio, in August after winning the Album Of The Year Grammy in 2022. While he’s mainly promoting the album, he’ll likely also want to talk about making his acting debut in the musical version of The Color Purple, which hits theaters on Christmas.