Bryn Mawr French department hosted musicians Jaques Schwarz-Bart and Grégory Privat for an exclusive jazz concert on the evening of Sep. 24. Just beginning their international tour, the duo showcased “22.” This collaborative project was made in dedication to their 22-year friendship, which happens to contain a 22-year age difference. The album, released on May 2, features ten compositions of Privat on the piano and Schwarz-Bart on the saxophone.
As students, faculty, and guests from the broader public trickled into the Music Room—one of Bryn Mawr’s distinctively gothic enclaves in the basement of Goodhart—an air of collective excitement grew more and more tangible. Though attendance was certainly dominated by the French department, “22” had drawn an audience both intimate and wide-ranging. Students could be overheard both communicating in French and also discussing a variety of language experiences, exchanging their respective interests and proficiency levels.
With the musicians’ planned 7 p.m. entrance drawing closer to 7:30, one student proposed to her friends that perhaps the concert was planned to begin at exactly 7:22, in alignment with the “22” theme. In this thoroughly convivial atmosphere, punctuality was far from a concern. Schwarz-Bart and Privat’s eventual entrance was met with bright smiles and raucous applause. Immediately charismatic, the two harnessed the room’s warmth, engaging in jokes with the crowd and each other.
Following a succinct and lighthearted introduction by Professor Rudy Le Menthéour, who opened the event by saying he was “not going to be a professor tonight,” the music began. In its live form, each composition bore a spirited, cinematic intensity. The refrains concurrently soothed and surprised, often including moments of blunt silence that would magnify proceeding vehemence. With both musicians commanding their respective instruments with their entire bodies, Privat, often bouncing out of his seat, could notably be seen having to brace his foot on the piano legs.
Of the night’s seven performances, “Isaïah” comes to the fore as especially remarkable. The piece was created by Privat, who, during his introduction, revealed that its title was a tribute to his little nephew. With the composition’s deeply ethereal, kaleidescopic riffs, Privat intended to translate “the light that we have when we are a child.” It built from slow, nostalgic melodies to a fever-pitch harmony of Privat’s piano, Schwarz-Bart’s saxophone, and the layering of celestial, acapella-esque vocals. Both whimsical and melancholic, the latter-half of “Isaïah” seeped wholly through the room, to the point where one could feel a thrum in the floorboards, a palpable vibration from one wall to the other.
After this feat, Privat noted that while “Isaïah” was written primarily for his nephew, it was also, of course, written for Schwarz-Bart and their project. Schwarz-Bart returned this gesture with effusive praise for Privat, musing, “I saw Grégory grow into a major force…he’s an angel…[Isaïah] touched me so deeply…I’m honored.” During the later Q&A session, Schwarz-Bart fondly professed “Isaïah” to be “one of the best compositions I’ve heard in a long time.”
Amidst the concert’s myriad emotional beats, Privat and Schwarz-Bart also held space for moments of political emphasis. This facet was perhaps most poignant in the duo’s introduction of Track 3, “Peace in the Middle East.” Schwarz-Bart made sure to note that “most people” would term the present conflict in Gaza a “genocide,” and Privat expressed a desire to underscore the importance of peace “now more than ever.”
Also central to the group’s ethic are their respective Carribean heritages, with Schwarz-Bart born in Guadaluope and Privat in Martinique. In addition to the duo’s meshing of contemporary jazz with various strains of Afro-Carribean and Black American tradition, explicitly Creole titles on the “22” album include “Dlo Pann,” meaning “water pan,” and “Sé Ké Alé,” which transtates to “it will go” but is often used to convey the sentiment “it will be ok.”
Near the end of the Q&A session, Schwarz-Bart declared, “We represent a generation of Carribean jazz musicians who are using Creole to create our aesthetic.” This celebratory incorporation of their native dialect and musicality, Schwarz-Bart argued, set Privat and himself apart from “the older [Carribean] musicians, masquerading as Americans.” Previous generations’ efforts to assimilate into a homogenized Western jazz style “ignored everything we can bring to the table as Carribean inheritance.”
For evident reason, the friendship between the two musicians stands as the true through-line of “22.” Regarding the opportunity to not only play jazz – the one medium that “embraces all elements of the human persona” – but explore this beloved language with an artist like Privat, Schwarz-Bart proclaimed, “This is what I live for – what else is there?”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that the professor who hosted the event was Julien Suaudeau. The host was in fact Professor Rudy Le Menthéour.
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