Meeting: Jowee Omicil, a Sacred Breath in Fes

Barely off the stage of Jnan Sbil garden, Jowee Omicil, a nomadic saxophonist and free jazz sorcerer, welcomes us with a pocket cornet glued to his lips. Between two questions, he blows raw notes, as if the music refused to die out after his set. On this late afternoon, as part of the 28th edition of the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, the Haitian-Canadian artist delivered a vibrant performance, an echo of his album SpiriTuaL HeaLinG: Bwa KaYimaN FreeDoM SuiTe (2023), where revolt and meditation dance together. A meeting with a musician who becomes a channel for spirits, between Fes and infinity.

«This is the jazz I advocate. A jazz without limits. Tonal, atonal, supertonal, bashtonal. No borders, no melodic, rhythmic, spiritual limits». Omicil speaks as he plays: with overflowing freedom, a flow that weaves between concepts and silences. His jazz is a trance without barriers, a tribute to Ornette Coleman as much as to the Haitian ancestors of the 1791 revolution, whose spirit haunts his latest album. In Fes, a crossroads city where sacred musics meet, his saxophone seemed to invoke ancient forces, between a cry of revolt and a soothing prayer.

When asked about the spiritual dimension of his performance, Omicil comes alive: «We access different entities during the show. We call them, honor them, recognize them. And when we recognize them, they use us. We become channels ». For him, music is a ritual, a «need for the sacred » where the spiritual and artistic intertwine. His show at Jnan Sbil was a ceremony: a dialogue with invisible forces, inspired by the Vodou ceremony of Bwa Kayiman, that slave uprising which shook the Haitian colonists. «It’s the sacred, yes. And the spiritual. They go together»

Rebirth, Always

The theme of this festival edition, «Renaissances», resonates in his words like an obvious truth: «Every day is a renewal. An opportunity to perfect oneself, even in this perpetual imperfection ». Omicil does not believe in stagnation. His music, like his life, is a quest for ascension, nourished by silence and humility. «To renew, you have to travel, meditate, stay in silence. It humbles us, and in this humility, we can ascend ». On stage, this rebirth takes shape in improvisations that even surprise their creator: «Earlier, it wasn’t what I expected. But what I expect is useless. What matters is what the great master, up there, wants to do with us ».

How does he then weave a bridge between musical traditions — Haitian, African, jazz, Caribbean — without it ever sounding forced? «The authentic accessibility of the entities», he answers enigmatically. «By being open, we receive unexpected frequencies ». In Fes, a city of confluences, his jazz becomes a crossroads where cultures dialogue without hierarchy. His saxophone, alternately raging and meditative, captures these «signals » to transform them into music that transcends expectations.

Fes, the Unexpected Note

And Fes, what did it inspire in this modern griot? «Fes…, » he breathes, leaving the word hanging like a note he has not yet finished playing. In this city where the spiritual permeates every stone, Omicil seems to have found an echo to his quest for the absolute. His concert, carried by the breath of his saxophones and the freedom of his improvisation, transformed Jnan Sbil into a space of communion, where the audience, suspended, vibrated to the rhythm of his «frequencies».

Jowee Omicil never stops. «My music is constantly renewing itself. Even now, while we talk, I’m searching for notes, I hear things ». Between two sentences, he sketches a tune, as if silence were a score to fill. In Fes, he offered more than a concert: an experience where music becomes prayer, revolt, and rebirth. «It’s perpetual love, endless, without limits», he concludes. And in this love, there is the promise of a jazz that never dies.