Tout-à-Coup Jazz was a musical group formed in the Republic of Upper Volta (today Burkina Faso) in the 1970s, during the military rule of Colonel General Sangoulé Lamizana. In French, tout à coup is an adverb meaning "suddenly" or "out of the blue". As the name indicates, the band played jazz, and is said to have been relatively popular. The band included Captain Thomas Sankara on guitar and his close friend, Captain Blaise Compaoré, on the microphone.
Sankara, a Marxist, pan-Africanist, and war veteran, met Blaise Compaoré in 1976 when they were stationed in Morocco. Sankara was taught guitar as a child by Pascal Ouédraogo Kayouré, who called him a "disciplined student" whose real passion was music. In 2015 Abdoulaye Cisse (who noted that Sankara was a skilled musician whereas "Compaoré just sang") stated that while the band had more rehearsals than concerts, every performance was magical. In 1983, Compaoré led a military coup against Major Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, placing his Sankara as President of Upper Volta.
