Arnaud Dolmen

Born in Bar-le-Duc in 1985 and raised in Guadeloupe from childhood, Arnaud Dolmen has built a career in which jazz converses with Caribbean rhythms, notably the gwoka he learned on the tambour ka, before receiving broader percussion training and then studying drums. He spent time in Toulouse in the early 2000s, where he studied at the Dante Agostini school, and went on to begin his professional career with musicians such as Franck Nicolas, Alain Jean-Marie and Michel Alibo, before settling in Paris in 2010. There he moves between several scenes — from jazz to Antillean music and zouk — and has notably accompanied Mario Canonge, Naïssam Jalal, David Linx and Jacques Schwarz-Bart. His playing combines strong rhythmic mobility with a marked attention to timbre, and his writing allows Creole pulsations, jazz improvisation and contemporary forms to coexist. After various trio, quintet and quartet projects, he released Tonbé Lévé in 2017 and Adjusting in 2022 under his own name. He also develops LeNo Duo with pianist Leonardo Montana, documented by an album in 2024, and took part in 2025 in The Getdown with Laurent Coulondre and Grégory Privat. Arnaud Dolmen received a Victoire du Jazz in 2022 and another distinction in the same framework in 2025.