Jazz At MOCA To Feature Saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart

The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA) is thrilled to feature saxophonist, Jacques Schwarz-Bart as part of its monthly "Jazz at MOCA" series on Friday, March 27. Schwarz-Bart grew up in Guadeloupe where he learned how to play the Gwo ka drum as a child. He was coached by Anzala, one of the top percussionists in Guadeloupe and learned the biguine style of music. At age six, while living in Switzerland, Schwarz-Bart discovered jazz music and taught himself how to play the guitar by playing along with jazz records.

Schwarz-Bart's impressionistic writing, powerful tone, and wide-ranging language - both lyrical and angular - have fueled a growing presence in the jazz scene. Schwarz-Bart has been at the center of several musical revolutions including neo soul and New Jazz as a founding member of Roy Hargrove RH Factor. He created two new styles of jazz music including Gwo ka Jazz and Voodoo Jazz, reuniting jazz music with its Afro-Caribbean and spiritual origins.

Schwarz-Bart has played alongside luminaries including Roy Hargrove, Danilo Perez, Ari Hoenig, Meshell n'Degeocello, Chucho Valde, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Eric Benet, James Hurt, and David Gilmore. In 2005, Schwarz-Bart began the Gwo ka Jazz Project which included musicians Admiral T and Jacob Desvarieux of Kassav' and created the albums, Soné Ka La and Abyss. In 2010, he released Rise Above which is a collaboration with his wife singer Stephanie McKay.

Jazz with an Attitude ( JWA) is a visionary trio that conjures the best of urban music and Jazz: the grooves and sounds of the former, and the sophistication of the latter. Jacques Schwarz-Bart draws from his immense experience next to the greatest's and found a band with two of his star students at Berklee College of Music. Ron Cha, whose keys relentlessly paint an impressionist fresque, and Isaiah Weatherspoon, whose trepidant and cataclysmic drumming keeps the listener in a state of heightened consciousness, in the middle of which Jacques Schwarz-Bart's melodies soar with a luminous energy constantly renewed. Each song is the fruit of this fusional chemistry.

Also on view is HamacaS, a socially engaged project by Liene Bosquê, coordinated by Ana Clara Silva, on view from February 8 through March 29, 2020. HamacaS explores the cultural dissonance and emotional displacement experienced by immigrants in the United States. The project consists of an interactive installation at the museum that will be activated through collective hammock weaving sessions and workshops. The project will offer a critical and expansive conversation around immigration with communities in Miami.

The public is invited to enjoy the vibrant sounds of Jacques Schwarz-Bart at 8:00 p.m., rain or shine.

Guests may also walk through MOCA's two exhibitions, Cecilia Vicuña's "About to Happen" and Alice Rahon's "Poetic Invocations" for its closing weekend. Cecilia Vicuña's "About to Happen" traces the Chilean artist's career-long commitment to exploring discarded and displaced materials, peoples and landscapes in a time of global climate change. The late French-Mexican surrealist painter Alice Rahon's "Poetic Invocations" aims to contribute to the scholarship and recognition of under-explored women artists, and to the intercultural influences on European artists in exile in the Americas, whose work was often deeply marked by indigenous and archaic cultures. Both exhibitions are on view through March 29, 2020.

When: Friday, March 27, 2020; 8:00 p.m.

Where: MOCA Plaza
770 NE 125th Street
Miami, FL 33161

Cost: This event is free and open to the public.

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