Photo credit: Xavier Arias & Antoine Carlier |
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Saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart takes listeners deep into the heart of the scintillating marriage between jazz, Gnawa (mystical music of Morocco), and gwo ka (the traditional music of Guadeloupe) with his fourth album, Abyss. The album is Schwarz-Bart's debut for ObliqSound, and features bonus remixes by DJ Spinna and Renovation Unlimited, exclusively for release in North America.
Only an artist with Schwarz-Bart's unique legacy could share this passionate quest for the sensual and poetic meeting of two cultures evolving from the same core, the same African roots, separated by the very history of their evolution. The son of a black Guadeloupean mother, Simone, and a Holocaust-surviving French Jewish father, Andre, Jacques Schwarz-Bart was born in the suburbs of Guadeloupe in the early 1960s and spent his childhood living in both Switzerland and Guadeloupe. At the time, speaking Creole and exploring traditional music like the gwo ka drums was left to the descendants of runaway slaves, who kept the spirit of their ancestors alive by celebrating their African heritage. Schwarz-Bart's parents, both award-winning novelists, focused on Caribbean history and music to make sure they shared with their young son this heritage rich in commonalities and contrasts.
Schwarz-Bart has released three earlier albums as a leader, including the straight ahead "Immersion," "The Brother Jacques Project," a mixture of soul and jazz, with layers of Caribbean rhythms, and "Soné Ka La," a blend of the multi-cultural influences that set the scene for his new musical works. But it is "Abyss" that marks Schwarz-Bart's emergence as a confirmed soloist, composer and trail-blazer. He delves deeply into the sound of gwo ka and into Gnawa music, from the Moroccan descendants of African slaves who developed their own music and culture like their African American and Afro Caribbean counterparts, resulting in a mystical and divine sound of varied scales and constant interplay between call and response. The compositions here are even more inspired, and they allow the whole group to become unified by this new interactivity, to throw off constraints and devote themselves to the development of free space.
When Schwarz-Bart first arrived in New York, he lost no time in immersing himself fully in the city's scene. In a moment of pure gusto that would shape his destiny, he walked into the legendary club Bradlee's where Chucho Valdes, Roy Hargrove and Randy Brecker were sharing the stage. Without a second thought, Schwarz-Bart jumped on stage and played his heart out. One month later, he got a call from Roy Hargrove to replace David Sanchez in his Latin jazz band, Crisol. Since then, artists of every stripe have called upon Schwarz-Bart's services, among them Hargrove, Erykah Badu, Eric Benet, Meshell N'degeocello, Danilo Perez, Soulive, Ari Hoenig, David Gilmore, and modern soul hero D'Angelo, who nicknamed him "Brother Jacques". Schwarz-Bart also began to earn acclaim for his work as a songwriter, after his song "Forget Regret," was the first single on Hargrove's "Hard Groove" album. |
Full biography
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