Victor Coulsen

{{Infobox musical artist | name = Victor Coulsen | image = | image_size = | landscape =  | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | alias = Vic Coulsen, Vic Coulson, Vic Couslen | birth_date =  | birth_place = | origin = | death_date =  | death_place = | genre = Jazz, bebop | occupation = Trumpeter | instrument = Trumpet | years_active =  | label = | website =  }} '''Victor "Vic" Coulsen''' (dates unknown) was an American jazz trumpeter.

Often referred to as Vic Coulsen, Vic Coulson, and even Vic Couslen,<ref name="Gottlieb">{{cite journal|last=Gottlieb|first=Bill|author-link=William P. Gottlieb|title=Thelonious Monk -- Genius Of Bop|journal=Down Beat|date=24 September 1947|url=http://www.theloniousrecords.com/Profiles_interviews/Gottlieb%20%2747.htm|accessdate=7 June 2013}}</ref> Coulsen was a member of the resident band at the Monroe's club, under Al Tinney's direction from as early as 1940.<ref name=DeVeaux>{{cite book|last=DeVeaux|first=Scott|title=The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History|year=1999|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0520216655|page=233}}</ref>

Coulsen has often been remembered as having had a seminal influence on the phrasing of early bebop by the likes of Thelonious Monk,<ref name="Gottlieb"/> Miles Davis,<ref>{{cite web|last=Feather|first=Leonard|title=Somethin' Else|url=http://www.cannonball-adderley.com/1144.htm|work=The Cannonball Adderley Rendez-vous|accessdate=7 June 2013}}</ref> Dizzy Gillespie<ref>{{cite book | title=To Be, or Not . . . to Bop | publisher=Univ Of Minnesota Press | author=Gillespie, Dizzy and Al Fraser | year=2009 | isbn=978-0816665471}}</ref> and several others - Charlie Parker<ref name=marwat>{{cite book|last=Martin|first=Henry|title=Essential Jazz: The First 100 Years|year=2008|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0495505259|edition=2|author2=Keith Waters }}</ref> among them. Parker remembers Coulsen (here spelled "Coulson") ''"playing things I'd never heard before"'', and states that the music he heard on those nights at Monroe's caused him to quit Jay McShann's band and relocate to New York City.<ref name="marwat"/>

These testimonies make Coulsen one of the founding fathers (albeit a minor one) of the bebop idiom. Unfortunately, Coulsen never recorded, except for some tracks taken in 1944 with an orchestra led by Coleman Hawkins, where he performs in the trumpet section, taking no solos.<ref name="DeVeaux"/>

Nothing is known of Coulsen's early life. After 1945, according to Al Tinney's testimony,<ref name="DeVeaux"/> Coulsen became an alcoholic (a "wino", in Tinney's words) falling back into obscurity.

==Discography== '''With Coleman Hawkins''' *''Rainbow Mist'' (Delmark, 1944 [1992]) compilation of Apollo recordings

== References == {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coulsen, Victor}} Category:Bebop trumpeters Category:African-American musicians Category:American jazz trumpeters Category:American male trumpeters Category:American male jazz musicians