Jazz and Gwo Ka, two musical forms of the African diaspora, will be featured in Port-au-Spain, Trinidad, on April 24th, when saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart and his band appear at the Lion’s Cultural Center.
Schwarz-Bart, son of Guadeloupean novelist Simone Schwarz-Bart and her husband André (also an award-winning novelist), emerged as the leading musician exploring the links between gwo ka (a Guadeloupean musical tradition played with hand drums) and jazz in 2007, when he issued Soné Ka-La, a cd that featured musicians such as Admiral T and Jacob Desvarieux of Kassav’.
His new project, Abyss, was just issued in the United States. It is dedicated to the memory of his father, André, best known for his novel The Last of the Just, which traces the story of a Jewish family from the Crusades to Auschwitz, and which won the Prix Goncourt in 1959. ”I wanted to express something infinite: infinite love, infinite grief, infinite awe in front of the mysteries of life and death,” Brother Jacques says of this project. “I hope it lives up to the love and admiration I will have for him forever.”
In addition to Abyss, you may want to listen to Suite mangrove , his 2008 collaboration with the Olivier Hutman quartet.
For the article on the Trinidad Newsday go to http://www.newsday.co.tt/features/0,98045.html
You can read more about Jacques Schwarz-Bart on his website at http://www.brotherjacques.com/
as he says, “I wanted to express something infinite; infinite love, infinite grief, infinite awe in front of the mysteries of life and death,” Individually, this speaks to me deeply. Thank you for sharing this.
By: Maria Henderson Handzus on April 8, 2009
at 11:15 pm
[...] recently-deceased father, as a sort of Kaddish or Jewish prayer for the dead. [See our earlier post Jacques Schwarz-Bart (Brother Jacques) to Perform in Jazz and Gwo Ka Concert in Trinidad for more on Abyss.] Here are some excerpts from the interview . . [...]
By: Brother Jacques in Paris: An Interview « Repeating Islands on June 6, 2009
at 3:56 am