Jimmy McPartland (March 15, 1907 – March 13, 1991) was a member of the group of young White Chicago Jazz musicians known as the Austin High Gang. This group consisted of Jimmy and his brother Dick, Frank Teschemacher, Bud Freeman, Eddie Condon, Dave Tough, Jim Lanigan and Joe Sullivan.In 1924 Jimmy took Bix Beiderbecke’s place in the Wolverine Orchestra after Bix recommended him for the job. He made his first recordings with the band in 1925. In 1926 McPartland worked with Art Kassel and others before joining Ben Pollack in 1927. That same year he took part in a famous recording session with some members of the Austin High School Gang under the name McKenzie and Condon’s Chicagoans.
He left Pollack in 1929 and he worked in and around New York with a variety of bands. He played with Harry Reser from 1933 to 1935 and led his own group from 1936 to 1941, until he was drafted for World War II. As a soldier he took part in the Normandy invasion (D-Day). He was discharged in 1945, but stayed to play with the USO. While in Europe he married the English Jazz pianist Marian Turner. The two continued to play music together up until 1990. Jimmy continued to play a cornet given to him by Bix Beiderbecke throughout his career.
| Jimmy McPartland and his Orchestra | Jimmy McPartland’s Squirrels |
Redhotjazz.com was a pioneering website during the "Information wants to be Free" era of the 1990s. In that spirit we are recovering the lost data from the now defunct site and sharing it with you.
Most of the music in the archive is in the form of MP3s hosted on Archive.org or the French servers of Jazz-on-line.com where this music is all in the public domain.
Files unavailable from those sources we host ourselves. They were made from original 78 RPM records in the hands of private collectors in the 1990s who contributed to the original redhotjazz.com. They were hosted as .ra files originally and we have converted them into the more modern MP3 format. They are of inferior quality to what is available commercially and are intended for reference purposes only. In some cases a Real Audio (.ra) file from Archive.org will download. Don't be scared! Those files will play in many music programs, but not Windows Media Player.
