Jacquet was born on December 4, 1917, in Saint Martinville, Louisiana, United States.
He was the elder brother of well-known tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet, whom he worked with through the years.
Jacquet had stints with Floyd Ray and Milt Larkin before he began studying music at Wiley College and Texas Southern University.
He later played with several small groups in Oakland, California, and in Houston with Arnett Cobb, and on a few dates in New York with his brother.
[1] He died of a heart attack on February 28, 1990, in Los Angeles, California, aged 72.