Intrigued by Grimes’ story, I became curious about whatever happened to another, more obscure figure in the annals of free jazz: trumpeter Jacques Coursil, who only appeared on about five albums in his short career. Coursil was one of the first French nationals to be heard playing free jazz outside of his homeland. His intellectual conception and deep concern with the sound of his horn placed him in the same circles as Anthony Braxton, with whom he collaborated during the saxophonist’s residence in Paris. His West Indian heritage gave Coursil an appreciation for Caribbean musical styles along with classical and jazz forms, all of which he used as elements in his personal bag of tricks.
After high school Coursil came to America, where he studied jazz under Jaki Byard and drummer Sunny Murray. Both men were involved in free jazz to different degrees, but it was Murray who convinced Coursil to pursue the path of freedom. The drummer also featured Coursil on his self-titled ESP record in 1966. Gigs with Rashied Ali, Marion Brown, Frank Wright (Your Prayer, 1967, ESP), pianist Burton Greene (Aquariana, 1966, ESP), and the Sun Ra Arkestra opened his eyes to new possibilities in jazz. Coursil then recorded with Bill Dixon’s big band and with his own quintet featuring Brown. That group cut what would have been his debut recording for ESP. Unfortunately, neither session ever saw the light of day. Today Coursil is principally recognized for two albums issued on BYG in 1969: The Way Ahead, with altoist Arthur Jones, bassist Beb Guerin, and drummer Jacques Delcloo (BYG’s A&R man); and the freer Black Suite with that quartet plus Anthony Braxton and Burton Greene. Here Coursil reached his pinnacle as a jazz trumpeter, crafting highly original melodic phrases out of thin air and producing some of the most attractive tones to emerge from the free jazz boom.
Occupying the middle ground between Dixon’s starkness and Lester Bowie’s goofiness, Coursil seemed to be full of promise as a voice in avant-garde jazz. But following his brief heyday at the close of the 1960s, Coursil descended back into obscurity and never recorded again. He continued to gig around New York City, spreading his influence quietly but effectively around the young set. Coursil made perhaps the biggest impression on one of his high-school French students: John Zorn, who openly acknowledges his teacher’s inspiration. It was by attending one of his teacher’s gigs that Zorn decided what he wanted to do with his life. But from that point onward Jacques Coursil disappeared from the jazz history books.
After a bit of digging, I found out that Coursil gave up the jazz life in order to become an educator. Last summer I tracked him down to Cornell University, where he is a visiting professor of Francophone studies. (His usual gig is as a professor of linguistics at the French West Indies University in Martinique.) Coursil politely declined to talk about his former career, preferring not to dredge up memories “like an old timer remembering the good old days”, as he put it. He said that music still plays a part in his life and that he might be interested in getting back into it someday. Now that John Zorn knows how to get in touch with his old mentor again, perhaps Coursil will once again be gracing the jazz bins in the near future. One can only hope. In the meantime, he is more than content immersing himself in French literature and linguistics as he’s done for the past three decades.
(Disclosure: some of the above info has been excerpted from my forthcoming book, Free Jazz and Free Improvisation: A Reference Guide, due from Greenwood Press in 2004.)
