This evening’s concerts create a bridge between the Sonic Pluriverse Festival: Bass Cultures and Bwa Kayiman, the annual event at HKW in celebration of the Haitian Revolution.

Jowee Omicil

Saxophonist, composer, pianist and singer Jowee Omicil combines jazz with Haitian rhythms. His 2023 album Spiritual Healing: Bwa Kayiman Freedom Suite focuses on a decidedly Haitian theme: the ceremonial gathering in Bwa Kayiman in 1791 that heralded the start of a rebellion by enslaved Haitians and paved their way to freedom. Hundreds of enslaved people from the surrounding plantations gathered for a religious ritual and strategic meeting, deciding to launch the liberation struggle that led to the Haitian Revolution. In his hour-long piece, Omicil tells this story. His own musical journey began in his father’s church, where he lifted up the congregation with his saxophone. Omicil studied at the Berklee College of Music and is part of the New York jazz scene, where Ornette Coleman became his mentor and through which he has collaborated with artists such as Roy Hargrove, Marcus Miller, and Wyclef Jean. As well as being a gifted multi-instrumentalist who moves effortlessly between genres, Omicil is also an inquisitive explorer, always in search of knowledge and spirituality.

 

Boukman Eksperyans

Returning again to Bwa Kayiman, one of the most important figures of the rebellion was Dutty Boukman, who led the assembled company and triggered the revolution. Although he was soon taken prisoner and murdered by French colonial troops, Boukman has remained a national hero in Haiti, prompting the group Boukman Eksperyans to name themselves after him when they formed in 1978. The original members Lolo Beaubrun and Manzé Beaubrun are still the band’s musical leaders, now assisted by their children, and remain on their revolutionary mission, both socially and musically.

Boukman Eksperyans was the first band to play in the musical style called rasin, which has now achieved worldwide fame. Since 1970, it has mixed various kinds of traditional Haitian music like rara, Vodou singing, and rural work songs with rock, reggae, soukous, funk, and jazz. The music often deals with political issues like freedom, self-determination, and faith and religion. After the ousting of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991, the band had to go into exile in Jamaica for several years, recording their third album, Libète (Pran Pou Pran'l!), at Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong Studios. In the three decades since their return to Haiti in 1994, Boukman Eksperyans have continued to perform on stage and have recorded subsequent nine albums, including the well-known Revolution (1998).