French jazz musician and academic Jacques Coursil was known for his avant-garde approach to the instrument, which he arrived at after spending his early years exploring violin and clarinet. Born in Paris on March 31, 1938, Coursil -- himself a Black man -- found himself inspired by Black American jazz musicians who had decamped to Paris, including the great Sidney Bechet. Coursil crossed paths with other esteemed jazz figures like Anthony Braxton and Arthur Jones, but one of his first major collaborations was with free jazz musician Frank Wright, whose quintet Coursil joined after he moved to New York City in 1965. He also briefly performed alongside Sun Ra.
He released two albums as a leader -- 1969’s Way Head (also stylized as Way Ahead), credited to the Jacques Coursil Unit, and Black Suite (featuring Braxton) in 1971 -- before departing for academia. He earned two doctorates from the Université de Caen in France, and then taught there for two decades, specializing in literature and theoretical linguistics. He made an unexpected return to music in 2005, with encouragement from John Zorn, who he’d tutored in French as a youth, and released Minimal Brass, a truly solo album that highlighted the circular breathing technique. He released three more albums before his death in Plombières, Belgium, on June 26, 2020.
