French male jazz musicians

René Didi Duprat (12 October 1926 – 8 August 1996) was a French jazz manouche guitarist.

Louis Vola (La Seyne-sur-Mer, France, 6 July 1902 – 15 August 1990, Paris) was a French double-bassist known for his work with the Quintette du Hot Club de France. He is the godfather of guitarist Francois Vola.
As well as the Hot Club de France, Vola played bass for Ray Ventura, Duke Ellington and singer Charles Trenet. He was also an accomplished accordionist.
In 1934 he was a founding member of the Quintette du Hot Club de France. In a 1976 interview, Vola recalled that he discovered Joseph and Django Reinhardt playing guitars together on a beach at Toulon. Vola invited them to play with his band. Violinist Stéphane Grappelli and guitarist Roger Chaput were members of Vola's jazz ensemble. Vola later left the Quintette but eventually rejoined.

Henri Texier (born 27 January 1945) is a French jazz double bassist.At the age of sixteen, fascinated by the double bass, Texier became a self-taught bassist, crediting Wilbur Ware most as an influence. He formed his first group with Georges Locatelli, Alain Tabar-Nouval, Jean-Max Albert, and Klaus Hagel, inspired by the music of Don Cherry and Ornette Coleman. In spite of an almost absence of recorded documents this group represents one of the first expressions of free jazz in France (1965).From 1968 to 1972, Texier was a member of Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine, along with George Gruntz, Gordon Beck and Daniel Humair. Throughout the 1970s, Texier remained active in Europe on the jazz scene, performing with musicians such as John Abercrombie and Didier Lockwood, among others. In 1982, he formed a quartet with Louis Sclavis. With the trio Romano-Sclavis-Texier, he collaborated in three albums having for theme Africa as seen by the photographer Guy Le Querrec: Carnet de routes, Suite africaine and African Flashback.

Hubert Rostaing (17 September 1918 – 10 June 1990) was a jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist. He also did film composition and classical music.
He began his career in Algiers with the "Red Hotters" and later moved to Paris. He might be best known for playing clarinet or saxophone in Django Reinhardt's quintet. His most known performance in that role might be his playing clarinet on Nuages. He later led a band, but after 1962 left jazz for film composing and classical music. He was orchestrator, conductor, or arranger for over 20 French films.

Dominique Pifarély (born 1957) is a French jazz violinist. He works in avant-garde jazz, but he has also worked in post-bop and other contexts.

Jacques Loussier (26 October 1934 – 5 March 2019) was a French pianist and composer. He arranged jazz interpretations of many of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, such as the Goldberg Variations. The Jacques Loussier Trio, founded in 1959, played more than 3,000 concerts and sold more than 7 million recordings—mostly in the Bach series. Loussier composed film scores and a number of classical pieces, including a Mass, a ballet, and violin concertos. His style is described as third stream, a synthesis of jazz and classical music, with an emphasis on improvisation.

François-Alexandre Galepides (14 February 1929 in Paris – 25 March 1987 in Arpajon), known by the stage name Moustache, was a French actor and jazz drummer of Greek descent.

In 1948 he joined Lorient, the orchestra of Claude Luter, as a drummer, playing in clubs of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He also regularly accompanied Sidney Bechet in France.
From 1950, he led his own bands (Les sept complices and Les gros minets). With the group Moustache et ses Moustachus, from 1956, he recorded, as a drummer and singer, several rock'n'roll novelty songs (e.g. "Le Croque-Skull-Creux", on a text by Boris Vian).
In 1978, he formed the group Les petits Français (including Marcel Zanini, Michel Attenoux and François Guin), which recorded, among other things, jazz pieces by Georges Brassens.
In parallel, Moustache had a career as a restaurateur (the restaurant Moustache, Avenue Duquesne Paris), head of clubs (in the 1960s, The Bilboquet and in 1976, The Jazz Club at the Hotel Méridien Etoile), comic and actor.
He was a member of the Star Racing Team in motor racing, with other celebrities of the 1980s such actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Guy Marchand. He died in a car accident.

Raphaël Faÿs is a French gypsy jazz and classical guitarist and composer born in Paris on 10 December 1959.

Christian Escoudé (born 1947) is a French Gypsy jazz guitarist.
He grew up in Angoulême and is of Romani descent on his father's side. His father was also a guitarist who was influenced by Django Reinhardt. When Escoudé was ten, his father began teaching him the guitar, and he became a professional musician at age fifteen. His style is a mix of bebop and gypsy jazz influences, featuring the use of vibrato, portamento, and fast runs.He started work in a trio with Aldo Romano in 1972. By the 1980s, he was in John Lewis's quartet. He also played with Philip Catherine for a time. In his forties, he signed with the French division of Verve Records.

Benoît Delbecq (born 6 June 1966) is a French pianist and composer.