Pierre Courbois is a Dutch jazz drummer, bandleader and composer.
Career
Courbois studied classical percussion at the Muzieklyceum in Arnhem. He then moved to Paris, at the time the capital of jazz, where greats such as Miles Davis, Kenny Clarke and Stan Getz made music. Here he played with famous jazz musicians such as Jean-Luc Ponty, Eric Dolphy, and Ben Webster, and he took drum lessons from Clarke, whose brush technique he studied and further developed. As a composer he has almost 100 works to his name.
According to Willem Breuker, Courbois was the very first European to experiment with free jazz, free music, jazz-rock and electronic improvised music.[source?] In 1961 Courbois became the bandleader of the (Original Dutch) Free Jazz Quartet. In 1964, saxophonist and vibraphonist Gunter Hampel founded his Heartplants Quintet, with Manfred Schoof, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Buschi Niebergall and Pierre Courbois. Thanks in part to this quintet, which toured the world in the mid-sixties, Courbois became known in the jazz world.
Together with pianist Jasper van ‘t Hof, he founded the ensemble Association PC at the end of 1969. With this ensemble, he toured the world again during the seventies. Courbois still plays regularly with Van ‘t Hof today.
In recent years, Courbois has performed with his own sextet, called the Pierre Courbois Vijfkwarts Sextet, which has had great success with the CD Révocation (2007). Sometimes he also plays with his son Barend Courbois and Jasper van ‘t Hof (this trio is called CourHof), with Polo de Haas in the Gong Duo, and with Loek Dikker in the Waterland Trio/Sextet. His Qwintett was also recently re-established with Toon de Gouw (trumpet), Jan Menu (baritone and soprano sax), Niko Langenhuijsen (piano) and Egon Kracht (double bass). And Ilja Reijngoud (trombone) joined his Sextedt.
In 1994 Courbois received the Bird Award at the North Sea Jazz Festival. Since 2000 he has been a Knight in the Order of Orange Nassau.
In 2008 Courbois received the VPRO/Boy Edgar Prize during a festive gathering at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam. Early 2010 a book about his long career was published, written by Bert Vuijsje and others, entitled Révocation – after one of his best-known compositions. (Source: Wikipedia)
