From ESP Disk:
A native of Paris, from a Martinican family, trumpeter Jacques Coursil came to New York in the mid-1960s and plunged into the free jazz scene. He recorded on dates led by drummer Sunny Murray as well as saxophonist Frank Wright, both for ESP, and even made a record of his own for the label in 1967, which went unreleased. Visiting Paris in 1969, he made two records as a leader (one with Anthony Braxton) and appeared on a Burton Greene date, all for the BYG label. Among other projects in New York, where he remained for the next several years, in 1969–70 he played alongside Sam Rivers in the city-funded Afro-American Singing Theatre, featuring operatically-trained singers in such works as “The Black Cowboys” (music by Rivers), performed all over the city. Then, for the next three decades, he left his music career to the side and became a university professor, teaching literature and linguistics. In 2004, he made a solo record, Minimal Brass, for John Zorn’s Tzadik label, followed by Clameurs (2007), recorded in Martinique for Universal France. On his new album, Trails of Tears (Universal, 2010)—an oratorio that commemorates the forced deportation in 1838 of the Cherokee nation from their native Georgia to reservations in Oklahoma—he employs two ensembles, one recorded in Martinique and the other in New York and Paris which reunites him with some old free jazz associates, including Sunny Murray, Alan Silva, and Perry Robinson. Since retiring from teaching, he has been living in Aachen, Germany.
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