available August 28, 2026
Resisting through music — passing on freedom
THE ACT
Some albums are born of necessity. Resistance — Jacques Schwarz-Bart’s new trio album — is one of them. Not an abstract manifesto, not a stylistic exercise : an act. The musical response of a man to the times he lives in, from the city where he lives, with musicians he has trusted for over twenty years. Jacques Schwarz-Bart lives in Boston. Faced with the resurgence of authoritarianism at the heart of Western democracies, he chooses one response : to transform anxiety into serenity.
“When Trump came back to power, I immediately understood what was happening. I could sink into depression, or
— through my art — find a source of serenity with those who share my concern. Music is our superpower.”
A LINEAGE
His father, André Schwarz-Bart, was the youngest member of the French Resistance. With his mother Simone, he wrote La Mulâtresse Solitude, a novel dedicated to a great figure of resistance against slavery in Guadeloupe. Between resistance to fascism and the struggle against colonial oppression, a lineage emerges — one that Jacques Schwarz-Bart carries, and intends to pass on to his son.
“I feel like the bearer of this torch — which I am trying, in my turn, to hand to my son.”
FORMAL FREEDOM
For this project, Jacques Schwarz-Bart made a deliberate choice : a formation without harmonic instruments — tenor saxophone, double bass, drums. No piano, no guitar. An act of structural freedom that opens a radical space for improvisation.
“Harmonic instruments often confine improvisers to whatever chords have been predetermined.
Their absence opens an extra space of madness.”
Musicians
Jacques Schwarz-Bart (sax), Reggie Washington (b), Arnaud Dolmen (dms)
Tracks
1- Sun Salutation – 4:24 / 2- Butterfly feat Malika Tirolien – 5:34 / 3- Twisted – 7:38 / 4- Ambrosia – 5:37 / 5- Equivox – 6:18 / 6- Central Park North – 5:33 / 7- Time Travel – 6:25 / 8- From Goré to Harlem – 5:38 / 9- Look no Further feat Stephanie McKay – 5:21 / 10- Dreaming of freedom – 5:28 /
Video
Details
Label: Ropeadope
Recorded Oct 20th and 21st, 2021 at Power Station NY, by Akihiro Nishimura, and mixed by David Darlington – Except for Dreaming of Freedom, recorded at Schwarz-Bart Music by Jacques Schwarz-Bart and Mixed by Russ Elevado
Online
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Reviews
Downbeat - John Murph - Jul. 2023 "On the prancing “Time Travel,” Schwarz-Bart sublimely connects Haitian Voodoo Kontredans rhythms with a Cuban tumbao bass line without sacrificing the lithe rhythmic propulsion associated with modern jazz. His saxophone passages writhe and soar gorgeously across the shifting rhythmic bed created by Penman and Gilmore. "
Jazz Magazine - Yazid Kouloughli - "With a Franco-Caribbean-American all-star line-up, Jacques Schwarz-Bart brings together bop, electric Herbie Hancock, nu-soul and the world of John Coltrane in a remarkably coherent whole, delivering a high-flying performance that is impressive for its many technical facets, but above all touching for the portrait it paints of the leader himself in this fresco dedicated to Harlem. "
Politis - Pauline Guedj - "The Harlem Suite is a journey made up of happy and sad pieces, lively and mournful melodies, in which the author once again excels in his ability to create a dialogue between an individual experience and a socio-historical situation that is all too little talked about. "
Le Monde - Francis Marmande - "The Harlem Suite is the perfect continuation of a work that merges with life: militant, spiritual, now installed at the summit of the great creators of jazz and Caribbean music. "
Jazzwise - Kevin Le Gendre - June 2023 "The Harlem Suite is a work of maturity from an artist who acknowledges that the past continues to inform the present, and, more to the point, fuel his own creative fire. "
le Bananier bleu - Christophe Jenny - March 2023 "With The Harlem Suite, Jacques Schwarz-Bart invites us to follow him through the twists and turns of his life as a jazzman, and the picture he paints reflects the maturity he has now reached, an unquestionable reference record. "