Jacques Coursil was a composer, jazz trumpeter, scholar, and professor of literature, linguistics, and philosophy.
10 Facts About Jacques Coursil
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In 1958, Jacques Coursil left for Africa, spending three years in Mauritania and Senegal, where he befriended Leopold Sedar Senghor, politician, poet and theorist of Negritude.
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In 1965, following the assassination of Malcolm X, and drawn to the free jazz he'd heard on records, Jacques Coursil moved to New York.
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Jacques Coursil studied with pianist Jaki Byard and composer Noel DaCosta.
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Later that year, Jacques Coursil joined Sunny Murray's band, leading to his first appearance on record as part of the January 1966 session for the drummer's eponymous album on ESP-Disk.
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Jacques Coursil recorded his first album as a leader, an unreleased ESP-Disk project with a group that featured saxophonist Marion Brown and drummer Eddie Marshall, with original compositions that, according to Coursil, resembled those of Ornette Coleman.
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In 1969, Jacques Coursil visited France, where he recorded two albums under his own name for BYG Records's Actuel series: Way Ahead, featuring saxophonist Arthur Jones, bassist Beb Guerin, and drummer Claude Delcloo, and a realization of Black Suite with Jones, Guerin, and Delcloo plus Anthony Braxton on contrabass clarinet and Burton Greene on piano.
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In 1975, Jacques Coursil departed for France, where he resumed his studies, leading to an Ph.
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In 2008 and 2009, Jacques Coursil worked on the recording of Trails of Tears, a composition which dealt with the forced relocation of Native Americans during the 1800s.
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In 2015, Jacques Coursil published a book titled Valeurs pures: le paradigme semiotique de Ferdinand de Saussure.