Jean-Claude Fohrenbach was a French tenor saxophonist who played and recorded in Paris from the bebop years of the late 1940s. He was born in Paris on January 5, 1925, and as a child learned the clarinet, piano, tenor saxophone and violin before concentrating on the tenor once he began playing full time in the mid-1940s. French Wikipedia adds that after the liberation of Paris he studied both classical music and jazz, and it gives him the nickname "Fofo."

His first recorded work dates from the years just after the war. French Wikipedia says he toured with Kenny Clarke in 1946, and English Wikipedia names Eddie Bernard and Django Reinhardt among his early employers. AllMusic lists tenor saxophone credits for him on Django Reinhardt reissues covering 1947, 1948 and 1953. On May 5, 1948 he recorded "The Man I Love" and "Stuffy" for the Swing label, a 78 rpm single (SW 282) billed to Fohrenbach and the alto saxophonist Michel de Villers, with Clarke on drums, Jacques Denjean on piano, Harry Montaggioni on guitar, Alphonse Masselier on bass and Claude Dunson on trumpet. He is also the tenor saxophonist on one side of the Kenny Clarke All Stars single "To Much Horn" and "Tall Boy," issued in the United States on Emanon and recorded in Europe, with Jack Diéval on piano, de Villers on alto saxophone and Dick Collins on trumpet.

From 1949 to 1951 he led a seven-piece band in a regular engagement at the Club Saint-Germain, the cellar club at the center of Saint-Germain-des-Prés jazz. French Wikipedia says the group included Hubert Fol, Ralph Schécroun and Alf Masselier, and quotes the writer and trumpeter Boris Vian, who was closely involved with the club, calling him without doubt the best French tenor saxophonist and perhaps the best in Europe. After the residency he worked in the early and mid-1950s with Jack Diéval, the trombonist Bernard Zacharias, the American trumpeter Jonah Jones, the bandleader Pierre Spiers, Claude Bolling's orchestra (1955 and 1956) and Martial Solal. Fresh Sound's 2025 anthology À la Française 1954-1956 places him as a tenor saxophonist on two of those sessions: the Raph Schecroun Quintet of 1955, alongside Jean-Louis Chautemps, and Bolling's All-Stars of May 28, 1956, with Roger Guérin and Solal. His own session of the period, recorded in Paris on March 26, 1954 with a rhythm section and issued on a Pacific 10-inch LP as Fohrenbach French Sound, is the record that Gitanes Jazz Productions reissued in 2005.

In the 1960s he worked with Georges Arvanitas, and English Wikipedia, citing the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, adds Eric Dolphy and Sonny Stitt to the names he performed with. In May 1964 he and the trumpeter Guérin recorded an EP of Nino Ferrer songs for Bel Air under the musical direction of Pierre Spiers, and a second Bel Air EP under both their names, Le Temps, has songs by Charles Aznavour and Leny Escudero among others, and Discogs gives it no date. He also recorded for the Sonorop library label, including the LP Sound 66, whose pieces AllMusic credits mostly to him. According to English Wikipedia he stopped performing between 1966 and 1972.

From the late 1970s he taught, and French Wikipedia says he taught music and jazz improvisation at the Centre d'informations musicales in Paris. English Wikipedia describes him as the keyboard player and saxophonist of the singer Jean Ferrat, and French Wikipedia says he accompanied Ferrat for seven years. His own records resumed in 1979 with an Open LP made with Arvanitas, the bassist Jacky Samson and the drummer Charles Saudrais, whose second side is Fohrenbach alone with saxophone, piano and a tape machine. In 1983 he was added as a fifth saxophonist on Quatuor Gabriel Pierné, an album by a saxophone quartet that includes four of his own compositions, and in October 1985 he recorded Golden Coast Blues with the guitarist Patrick Saussois's quintet, with sleeve notes by André Persiany. 4uatre joue avec Jean-Claude Fohrenbach, an album by the saxophone quartet 4uatre with him as soloist and composer, followed in 1996. Francofeel (Djaz Records) was recorded in October 2001 and issued in 2002 by the Jean-Claude Fohrenbach Quartet with the guitarist Alain Wilsch, the bassist Marie Boisseau and the drummer Eric Dervieu, and is built on French songs such as "Mon Légionnaire" and "La Mer." In 2005 Gitanes Jazz Productions reissued French Sound as a two-CD set in its Jazz in Paris series, with later recordings from 1963, 1966 and 1978.

Fohrenbach passed away on March 30, 2009, in Villiers-le-Duc, at the age of 84.

Fohrenbach belonged to the Paris bebop scene of the late 1940s: he recorded with the American drummer Kenny Clarke, led a band at the Club Saint-Germain and, according to French Wikipedia, was praised by Boris Vian as the best French tenor saxophonist of his day. No source consulted names the players who influenced him. His own records show a repertoire of American standards ("Body and Soul," "Pick Yourself Up," "These Foolish Things") alongside French songs such as "Mon Légionnaire" and "Le Chaland qui passe" and his own pieces, and on French Sound he plays piano and recorder as well as tenor saxophone. In 1955 and 1956 he was one of the tenor saxophonists on the Raph Schecroun Quintet and Claude Bolling All-Stars sessions that Fresh Sound's 2025 anthology À la Française 1954-1956 gathers as French jazz in the West Coast manner. Beyond jazz he recorded French popular songs on the Bel Air EPs with the trumpeter Roger Guérin and recorded library music for the Sonorop label.