François "Frick" Guin is a French trombonist, flutist, arranger and bandleader, born on May 18, 1938 in Contres, in the Loir-et-Cher département. He is known for the big band François Guin et les Swingers, for the multi-trombone group the Four Bones, and for the Prix Django-Reinhardt that the Académie du Jazz gave him in 1970. French Wikipedia describes a presence on the French jazz scene that lasted several decades, and quotes the critic Jacques Aboucaya on an arranger much in demand and a soloist with a big sound and a supple line.

He found jazz at secondary school, and sources list violin, piano and voice among his early studies alongside trumpet, trombone and flute. In 1957 he played trumpet with Marc Laferrière and in 1958 he switched to trombone. From 1959 to 1962 he was in the group of the trombonist Raymond Fonsèque, and in those years he also worked with Christian Chevallier, Jacques Denjean, Jacques Hélian and Daniel Janin. Discogs credits him on a 1962 big-band album by Jacques Denjean, Jazz, and on Madison Time by Tuxon West and His Madison Boys from the same year.

In 1967 he took over Fonsèque's septet, then called Trombones Incorporated, and renamed it Four Bones. In 1968 he formed Les Swingers with the tenor saxophonist Gérard Badini, the trumpeter Xavier Chambon, the pianist Gérard Gambus, the bassist Ricardo Galeazzi and the drummer Teddy Martin, and the band played regularly at the Club Saint-Germain in Paris. A track recorded on January 22, 1969 is titled "Swingers at the C.S.G.", and the 1969 release Swingers at C.S.G. / Do You Remember is filed on Discogs under the name Frick & Les Swingers. On January 30 and 31, 1969 he recorded Three Generation Jam at Ossian Studios in Paris with the American trumpeter Bill Coleman, the pianist Michael Garrett, the bassist Jean-François Catoire and the drummer Art Taylor, a session issued by 77 Records in London and later reissued on CD as Plus Four. French Wikipedia also places recording sessions with Michel Legrand in this period.

The Swingers' first years were also the years of his widest exposure. Wikipedia reports that in 1969 he played in the orchestra of Duke Ellington at the Paris Jazz Festival. On November 17, 1969 he was music director and arranger of a Studio Hoche session with Ellington's tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves, issued by Riviera as Paul Gonsalves, François Guin avec les Swingers et les Four Bones. Swingers in the Groove, recorded on May 12, 13 and 14, 1970 for the same label, followed. In 1970 he received the Prix Django-Reinhardt and was named best French trombonist by Jazz Hot. French Wikipedia adds festival work at Antibes, where he backed Roy Eldridge, and at Warsaw, Prague and Montreux, playing in orchestras led by Clark Terry and Gerry Mulligan; a Polish Jazz Jamboree '71 compilation carries a Swingers track from the Warsaw festival.

The Four Bones became his main vehicle in the 1970s. German Wikipedia places a tour of Europe and Africa in this period, with a stop in the Congo in 1972 or 1973, and says the repertoire centred on Ellington with a little Charles Mingus. In July 1972 the group backed the tenor saxophonist Guy Lafitte on Sugar and Spice for RCA Victor, with Guin on trombone and arranging six tracks. The Swingers' line-up changed from 1973, according to French Wikipedia, to include the trumpeter François Biensan, the pianist Jean Colombo, the bassist Patrice Caratini and the drummer Franco Manzecchi. A Barclay LP of 1975 collects sessions made between 1969 and 1973, with a Four Bones section of up to five trombones on the big-band pieces. On November 8, 1977 he recorded François Guin and the Four Bones at Sysmo Studio for the Black and Blue label (released in 1978), with the trombonists Benny Vasseur and Charles Verstraete, the bass trombonist Guy Arbion and a rhythm section of Alain Jean-Marie, Pierre-Yves Sorin and Guy Hayat. In 1979 Blue Star issued House of Jazz Volume 15 under the names of the trumpeter Cat Anderson and Guin's Four Bones.

He was also in demand outside his own groups. In the late 1970s he played in Les Petits Français, the jazz band of the drummer Moustache that recorded Georges Brassens's songs, and Discogs credits him on the albums issued from those sessions in 1979 and 1980, whose billing names Harry "Sweets" Edison, Joe Newman, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Cat Anderson. He played in the big band of Claude Bolling in the 1980s and appears on Bolling's Swing Session and on the live album At the Méridien, Paris (Chez Moustache) of 1984. He taught at the conservatoire of Châteauroux from 1985 to 1997. Haneda, a Four Bones album, came out on Madrigal in 1987 and was reissued by Black and Blue in 1994, with six tracks from the 1978 album added. He was made a chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in July 2006.

Guin is a trombonist and flutist whose work belongs to the swing and big-band tradition, with a strong Ellington current. As leader he wrote and arranged for large ensembles (Les Swingers) and for the unusual format of a trombone section with a rhythm section (the Four Bones), a line-up that appears on records from 1970 to 1994. Reference works credit him with a powerful tone and a fluid, flowing phrase as a soloist, and with a reputation as an arranger: Guy Lafitte's 1972 album carries his arrangements, and Paul Gonsalves recorded with his band. He names no teacher or influence in the sources available, so this section sticks to what the records and reference entries show. Discogs files his main releases under Jazz, with the styles Big Band and Swing on Swingers in the Groove.