Gary Bartz

Damage Control
Release Date: September 26, 2025
Label: OYO Records

In 2023, Gary Bartz made a bet. At 83 years old, the iconic saxophonist cashed out his 401k, went on sabbatical from teaching at Oberlin Conservatory, and made a record - not for a label, but for himself. The result is Damage Control, his first studio album in a dozen years, and one of the most heartfelt projects of his career.

“These are songs that I play in my house just for me when I just wanna relax and chill,” said Bartz. “They inspire me and they make me feel good.”

The NEA Jazz Master has earned that freedom. Over the past six decades, Bartz has recorded more than 45 solo albums and appeared on over 200 records, playing alongside everyone from Miles Davis to Pharoah Sanders, Lee Morgan, and Roy Hargrove. He has so thoroughly left his mark on the history of Black American music that it is hard to find a corner of the conversation he hasn’t touched and he is one of the last surviving links to the great bands of Blakey, Max Roach, McCoy Tyner, Charles Mingus, and Miles. His sound, which is unmistakable, searching, and soulful, has been sampled by A Tribe Called Quest, Warren G, and 9th Wonder, and celebrated by crate diggers, critics, and generations of musicians. He is a certified national treasure, named a NEA Jazz Master last year, an honor he learned of as he was recording this album.

Damage Control draws from the repertoire Bartz returns to when no one’s watching: the soulful classics made famous by artists like Curtis Mayfield, Anita Baker, Patti LaBelle, and Debarge. But these are far more than covers. Guided by Bartz’s visionary arranging and singular improvisational voice, the songs are transformed into meditative, jazz-infused tapestries with kaleidoscopic medleys stitched together with harmonic sophistication and a boundless ear. “Just because they are in clubs and they label them as R&B and all that stuff — those terms mean nothing to me,” said Gary. “The music transcends those labels because music, you can't explain it. They are sounds.”

The album was produced by longtime collaborator and godson Om’mas Keith (Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Frank Ocean), who recorded, mixed, and mastered the album at his North Hollywood home studio. “All I know is that I got a call from Gary,” said Keith. “He said he got some songs he wants to do that he likes to sing in the shower.” 

Sessions took place over a month and were defined by creative flow. Bartz, Keith, pianist Barney McAll, and drummer Kassa Overall worked intensely (often a song a day) with additional contributions from an all-star cast including Kamasi Washington, Terrace Martin, Keyon Harrold, Theo Croker, Spaceman Patterson, Nile Rodgers, and Shelley fka DRAM. Vocalists Daniel Merriweather and Rita Satch also appear.

For McAll, who’s worked with Bartz for nearly 30 years, the process was deeply personal. He and Overall, the recent Doris Duke Artists Award recipient who was once Gary’s student at Oberlin, holed up at an Echo Park cottage, which functioned as its own lab of sorts before and after studio sessions. Gary began each morning in the tub, singing standards along with Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and more, while Barney sat at an old upright piano, writing and refining arrangements before they headed to the studio for the day. “I am so easily able to write in the house with Gary…” wrote Barney of the experience. Frequently, the collaborators would work until dawn, sleeping a few short hours before getting up and doing it all over again. 

That energy, which was deeply collaborative and rooted in deep listening, defines Damage Control. Whether blending Charlie Parker with Anita Baker or laying Trane changes beneath Debarge, Bartz bridges the distance between seemingly disparate musical worlds with ease. It’s an ethos that’s defined his career.

As a Baltimorean, Gary grew up going to venues on Pennsylvania Avenue like the Royal Theatre, a Chitlin’ Circuit stronghold where jazz musicians, soul singers and pop acts appeared back to back, from Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker to James Brown and The Supremes. “Had they been the same age and in the same city at the same time, John Coltrane could have gone to school and graduated with James Brown,” remarked Gary. “It’s really all the same music to me.”

Damage Control is not just a passion project but a work of urgency and reflection. The album’s title, borrowed from maritime and medical terminology, alludes to efforts to prevent a sinking ship or save a wounded body. While the tracks themselves are not overtly political, Bartz’s life and work have always been grounded in awareness and advocacy. As a young man, he considered joining the Black Panthers before choosing music as his path of resistance.

“I’ve never felt safe in this country. Not one day,” he said. And yet, Damage Control offers sanctuary both to Bartz and to those who listen.

In his tender rendition of Curtis Mayfield’s “The Makings of You,” Bartz adds a whisper of guidance: “Add a little sugar.” It’s a gentle call to choose sweetness, joy, and compassion in a world increasingly in crisis.

Damage Control is the first in a planned trilogy he calls Eternal Tenure of Sound, built on the principle that genre means nothing to him musically. Each volume will showcase a different side of Bartz’s limitless creativity, with the second volume, which will feature members of Hiatus Kaiyote, slated for release in early 2026. 

With Damage Control, Gary Bartz reminds us not only of the transformative power of music but of the value of doing things on your own terms, even at 83. He’s a national treasure, yes. But more importantly, he’s a living artist, still evolving, still surprising, and still, gloriously, doing damage.