Jacques Schwarz-Bart

Jacques Schwarz-Bart has been at the center of several musical revolutions: neo soul  next to D’angelo and Erika Badu, New Jazz as a founding member of Roy Hargrove RH  Factor. He is a leading pioneer in the creation of two surging new styles: Gwoka Jazz,  and Voodoo jazz, reuniting jazz music with its Afro-Caribbean and spiritual origins.  Jacques’ impressionistic writing, powerful tone, and wide-ranging language – both  lyrical and angular – have fueled a growing presence on the world stage. 

“Return immediately to Paris and beg your senator to take you back. You don’t stand a  chance to accomplish anything on the music scene starting at such an old age. It’s  never been done and it will never happen“. That’s the kind of encouragement -or lack  thereof- that Jacques received from his Berklee fellow students when he entered the  school at 27, after starting the saxophone at 24. 

Jacques Schwarz-Bart was born in Guadeloupe. His parents are both widely  acclaimed writers. His father André won the Goncourt award and his mother wrote  several jewels of Caribbean literature. After graduating from the French School of  Government (Sciences Po Paris), Jacques has been working for the French Senate. He  was seemingly destined to a career as a statesman. But another path had been  shaping up in the same time: a path of music and mysticism. Jacques discovered 

African mysticism through Gwoka Music. The ceremonies called Lewoz took place at  night in the darkness of the country side in sugar cane fields, where rhythms and  chants emote a spiritual call. 

After playing alongside such luminaries as Roy Hargrove, Danilo Perez, Ari Hoenig,  Meshell n’Degeocello, D’angelo or Chucho Valdes, Jacques finally decides to follow his  own vision as a band leader. He then leaves Roy Hargrove’s band in 2005 and finalizes  his Gwoka Jazz Project, gathering some faithful and talented musicians such as Sonny  Troupé, Olivier Juste or Milan Milanovic. Jacques and his Gwoka Project recorded two  albums for Universal, Soné Ka La and Abyss, which have built his current career as an  internationally acclaimed jazz band leader. In 2010, he releases Rise Above, which  revives his long lasting collaboration with singer – and spouse – Stephanie McKay and  blends NY urban mood and Caribbean feelings. 

After playing extensively with Baptiste Trotignon, Thomas Bramerie and Hans van  Oosterhout over the course of the last four years, Jacques decided to document their  very special chemistry on CD. This quartet recording is entitled The Art of Dreaming.  It came out in 2012 and has been received everywhere with critical acclaim. 

This same year, Jacques Schwarz-Bart has created a project that synergizes modern  jazz and ritual voodoo music from Haiti. It features two Voodoo priests: the great singer  Errol Josué, and percussionist Gaston Bonga, as well as some of the finest Jazz  musicians: Etienne Charles, Obed Calvaire, Luqies Cutis, and Milan Milanovic. While  remaining a jazz project, the music is lifted by the powerful spirituality of voodoo music.  Band members and audience seem to be sailing together on a sea of light. The music  has been presented as the headliner for the opening day of the famous Banlieues  Bleues festival in Paris, early 2011. Jacques then has extensively been touring with this  project. The Jazz Racine Haiti project has finally been recorded and released by  Motema Music in January 2014, and inspired raving reviews from journalists all around  the world. 

It has already been years when Jacques and Omar Sosa had been discussing the  creation of a common project, a symbiotic meeting of Haitian and Cuban spiritual  traditions, enmeshed in the language of modern jazz. They finally gathered on the same  stage late 2014 with an immediate complicity, almost frighteningly energetic and  luminous. A residence in Guadeloupe followed early 2015, where both leaders brought  their respective trios. The Creole Spirits project is now on the rails, with concerts, a  new CD to come, and a high quality documentary for TV or film festivals. 

Since the release of Jazz Racine Haiti, Jacques Schwarz-Bart has become an  ambassador for a school of modern Jazz rooted in Voodoo music. Jacques’  impressionistic writing, powerful tone, and wide-ranging language – both lyrical and  angular – have fueled a growing presence on the world stage. His vision has inspired  an entire generation of young Jazzmen infusing their jazz expression with their native 

influences. Late 2016, Jacques became associate professor @ Berklee College of  Music, where he is teaching mainly ensembles over different styles: jazz music, neo soul… And he is also planning to let in Caribbean jazz into this prestigious institution. 

Beginning in 2016, Jacques has been working on two new projects. Voodoo Jazz  Trio is a refined evolution of Jazz Racine Haiti featuring Moonlight Benjamin (vcls) and  Claude Saturne (perc). On the other hand, Jacques has built Hazzan which is the jazz  recording and interpretation of Jewish liturgical chants, many of which carried the spirit  of a people through 5775 years of history. These songs are emotionally charged  historically, and on a personal level, since this project is a tribute to his late father, the  writer, André Schwarz-Bart. Both projects are to be recorded by the end of 2017.  Hazzan earned Jacques Schwarz-Bart the Bernheim Award, and toured constantly in  the US, Canada, Europe and the Caribbeans.  

In 2020, Jacques Schwarz-Bart released Soné Ka La, Odyssey, by which he  reinvented his original Gwoka-Jazz concept. Odyssey is first and foremost a tribute to  the Africans who crossed the Atlantic tied in chains, and found the strength to create  arts and music that have reshaped and elevated the modern world. With a new line up,  including the vocalist Malika Tirolien who sings all the melodies in unison with the  saxophone, JSB plants his feet firmly into the musical ground he forged years ago.  

Jacques Schwarz-Bart's new release will be his 11th. Entitled The Harlem Suite, it is a  harvest of tunes and arrangements that he wrote to celebrate each step into his  perilous but rewarding journey, from his native island of Guadeloupe to the heart of  modern black music: Harlem, where he lived for 18 years. Says Jacques: "I started  playing the tenor sax at 24. Three years later, I quit my job at the French Senate to go  to Berklee. At that point, coming to NY and playing with the likes of Roy Hargrove,  D’Angelo, Meshell, Danilo Perez, was an impossible dream. And then it happened.  Next to these giants, I started honing my playing and my musical vision." His Harlem  Suite portrays a modern jazz concept high in colors, built around powerful melodies,  infused with uplifting Afro Caribbean spirit, and dancing on a on a tapestry of poly rhythms. The line up could be described as an all star as it includes Terri Lyne  Carrington, Marcus Gilmore, Sullivan Fortner, Victor Gould, Matt Penman, Reggie  Washington, Arnaud Dolmen, Gregory Privat, Stephanie McKay, Malika Tirolien and  Ivanna Cuesta. 

The Harlem Suite

Release Date: March 31, 2023