François Chassagnite was a French trumpeter who spent the 1980s in Paris big bands and, from the late 1980s, led small groups of his own. He was born on June 21, 1955 in Ussel, in the Corrèze, and passed away in Nice on April 8, 2011, at 55. He began on cornet at 11 at the Prytanée national militaire in La Flèche, where his taste for jazz took hold, and went on to the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort. He practised as a veterinarian for only a short time before giving everything to music.

His Paris years started in the late 1970s. By the account of the obituary in La Gazette des Cuivres he played with the Old Fashioned Orchestra at the Caveau de la Montagne from 1979, then in the octet and big band of Jean-Loup Longnon, in Dino Cagnasso's big band and in the EuroJazz Big Band in London in 1981, and he stopped playing for some nine months in 1982 and 1983. By 1983 he was on record: he is one of the two trumpets on Antoine Hervé's Live in Paris (Philoé Music), and in 1984 he is in the trumpet section of Longnon's Torride! on 52e Rue Est. In a Jazz Hot interview of November 1983, Chet Baker is reported to have named him among the younger generation of trumpeters, a connection that would return in his last years. The saxophonist Lionel Belmondo recalled in the Gazette des Cuivres obituary that Chassagnite guided him after he arrived in Paris in 1985.

Big bands were his main workplace through the late 1980s. He was a member of the first Orchestre National de Jazz under François Jeanneau (1986 to 1988) and is credited on trumpet on Jazz Bühne Berlin 1986, an Amiga release of the band's concert at the Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin on June 29, 1986; he is also in the trumpet section of Jeanneau's own Pandemonium (Carlyne Music, 1988). In 1987 he joined Laurent Cugny's Big Band Lumière, which toured with Gil Evans, and the albums that came out of its November 1987 sessions credit him on trumpet: he is a soloist on "Rhythm-A-Ning" and "Charles Mingus's Sound of Love" on Rhythm-A-Ning (EmArcy, 1988) and on the title piece of Golden Hair (1989). He also played in Gérard Badini's Super Swing Machine (Mr. Swing Is Still Alive, Arpej, 1987), in La Bande à Badault (En Vacances au Soleil, Label Bleu, 1987) and in Arnaud Mattéi's nonet, recorded live at Radio France in December 1990 for Kamala (La Lichère), where he is credited on trumpet, flugelhorn and kess-kess.

His own records begin with Samya Cynthia (La Lichère, 1989), a quartet date recorded on December 17 and 18, 1988 and January 22, 1989 with the pianist Arnaud Mattéi, the bassist Jean Bardy and the drummer Oliver Johnson. Discogs credits him there on trumpet and on chimes, the small African percussion called kess-kess that he used in concerts. Chazzéologie (Instant Présent, 1995), a quintet recorded in January 1995 at Studio Ferber in Paris, adds the tenor saxophonist Guillaume Naturel. He then led Sorgho, a group built around Mattéi on keyboards, the guitarist Eric Daniel and Tiacoh Sadia on drums, percussion and voice, which made Savane (Pavillon, 1996) and Kess Kess (Quoi de Neuf Docteur, 1998). Un Poco Loco (TCB, 2000) is a straight-ahead quartet record with the pianist Frédéric D'Oelsnitz, the bassist Fabrice Bistoni and the drummer Yoann Serra, on which he plays trumpet and flugelhorn.

In 1997 he became professor of the jazz trumpet class at the Conservatoire national de région de Nice, where he settled. He also taught at the conservatories of Cannes and Cagnes-sur-Mer and ran the trumpet class of summer jazz courses in Vauvert, Lisieux and Marciac. Friends remembered a musician who practised intensely every day and who was generous and unassuming. In Nice he played regular Thursday sessions at the Sézamo with the saxophonist Sébastien Chaumont.

Jubilation (TCB, 2006), a trio record with the guitarist Olivier Giraudo and the bassist Pascal Masson, was his first recording as a singer as well as a trumpeter and a tribute to Chet Baker. He recorded again with Giraudo's guitar in Antibes on June 24 to 26, 2010, for what became Chat-ssagnite, a set of standards he loved, with vocals in English and French, played with the drummer Jean-Pierre Arnaud and the bassist Sylvain Romano. He is also credited on I Feel So Good (2010) by the singer Virginie Teychené, with whom he often played, and on Festival by the Nice Jazz Orchestra, led by Pierre Bertrand, which Cristal Records released in May 2011, weeks after his death. He had played in Nice on the evening of April 7, and passed away suddenly after returning home, of a heart attack. Frémeaux & Associés issued Chat-ssagnite in 2012 as his last studio recording, and Imago Records later released Bird Feathers (2017), a quartet date with Giraudo, the bassist Luigi Trussardi and the drummer Charles Bellonzi that was recorded in November 2009.

His models were Miles Davis and, above all, Chet Baker. The fellow trumpeter Éric Le Lann, according to the Gazette des Cuivres obituary, introduced him to Clifford Brown and Booker Little. In the credits he is a section trumpeter first, with a long record of big-band and ensemble work, and a leader of small groups whose repertoire runs from the bebop tune "Crazeology", which his 1995 album Chazzéologie plays and whose title it echoes, to standards such as "Autumn in New York" and "Everything Happens to Me". He brought small African percussion into his concerts, the kess-kess credited on Samya Cynthia, and he led Sorgho, a group with guitar, keyboards and a drummer-percussionist-vocalist.

When he took up singing on record in 2006, he followed Baker's light and airy manner. The singer Virginie Teychené, who often worked with him, has said that he was not a singer by origin but learned to sing difficult melodies, and the label's notes say that six of the twelve tracks on his last record are vocals, in French and English. No awards are recorded for him.