A multilingual multi-instrumentalist – with a particular fondness for the saxophone – Jowee Omicil began performing music in the church led by his pastor father, and went on to study at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston. He then moved to New York to launch his musical career, where he met Ornette Coleman and performed with Roy Hargrove in his group RH Factor. After spending time in Haiti and Venezuela he settled in Paris, where he signed with the label Jazz Village. His new album Love Matters! combines African rhythms with echos of Thelonious Monk, the melodies of Bach and Mozart, Oriental and even Asian influences, Jamaican beats, Miles Davis-style bursts of funk and the ecstasy of gospel, not to mention a rapper’s flair. It’s an album that might be described as eluding definitions of style, since it brings together so many different things, but is quite simply in the style of Jowee Omicil, whose new album resonates like a self-portrait in motion.