Jacques Coursil (March 31, 1938 – June 26, 2020[1]) was a composer, jazz trumpeter, scholar, and professor of literature, linguistics, and philosophy.
"[3] In 1958, Coursil left for Africa, spending three years in Mauritania and Senegal, where he befriended Léopold Sédar Senghor, politician, poet and theorist of Négritude.
"[4][2] During this time, Coursil supported himself by working as a bartender and dishwasher at the Dom, a club that would later be called the Electric Circus, and by playing jazz and rock music.
"[6] Later that year, 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.
[1] He also 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.
[2] In 1969, 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 Guérin, and drummer Claude Delcloo,[9] and a realization of Black Suite with Jones, Guérin, and Delcloo plus Anthony Braxton on contrabass clarinet and Burton Greene on piano.
[11] Upon his return to New York, Coursil taught French and mathematics at the United Nations International School, where one of his students was John Zorn.
[14] Over the coming years, he established a reputation as an expert in the literature of Édouard Glissant as well as Saussurean linguistics,[2][15] and published a book titled La fonction muette du langage: Essai de linguistique générale contemporaine (The Silent Function of Language: Essay in General Contemporary Linguistics) (2000).
[20] The work, which employs spoken texts accompanied by trumpet and percussion, as well as choral passages, is based on writings by Martinicans such as Frantz Fanon, Monchoachi, and Édouard Glissant, as well as the pre-Islamic poet Antar.