Jimmy McPartland

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James Douglas "Jimmy" McPartland (* 15. March 1907 in Chicago , Illinois ; † 13. March 1991 in Port Washington , New York ) was an American jazz - cornet , the traditional jazz in the Chicago style played.

Life

McPartland began to learn violin at the age of 5 and began to play the cornet at 15 as a member of the " Austin High Gang ", a group of young white jazz musicians who knew each other from high school in the affluent Chicago suburb of Austin (like Eddie Condon , Frank Teschemacher and Bud Freeman ). His first job was with the Blue Friars with Freeman (tenor saxophone), Teschemacher (clarinet), his older brother Dick McPartland (banjo, guitar), James Lanigan (bass, tuba, violin), Joe Sullivan (piano) and Dave Tough (drums ). In 1924 he succeeded Bix Beiderbecke with the Wolverines (recommended by Bix himself). From 1927 to 1929 he was with Ben Pollack's band as the main soloist alongside Benny Goodman . In 1926/7 he worked with Art Kassel and in 1927 took part in the famous recordings of ex-Austin high gang musicians at McKenzie and Condons Chicagoans (with Condon, Freeman, Gene Krupa , Lanigan, Sullivan, Mezz Mezzrow , Teschemacher). In 1929 he went to New York City , where he played in a few smaller combos, but returned to Chicago in 1930 and played with Russ Columbo from 1931 to 1932 and in the Harry Reser band from 1933 to 1935 .

From 1936 to 1941 McPartland led his own band that lasted until 1941 ( Chicago Jazz (Decca, 1940)) and was popular in the Midwest and New York. In it u played a. George Wettling , Joe Harris , Rosie McHargue, Royce Brown and Joe Rushton . In 1942 he was drafted into the US Army and participated in the Normandy landings . As a soldier, he also met his future wife, the English jazz pianist Marian McPartland , in Belgium, where she worked in the troop support. In 1945 he was released, but stayed with the USO (United Service Organization, private troop support organization) for a year before he and his wife moved back to the USA in 1946. Although they divorced in 1970, they remained friends and continued to play together. They remarried a few weeks before his death. After the war he was a member of Willie The Lion Smiths Band (with Jimmy Archey , Pee Wee Russell , Pops Foster and George Wettling), which received a Grammy in 1954 for the soundtrack for the film After Hours . He worked with Eddie Condon, Art Hodes and other veterans of the Chicago scene, often as a leader , in the decades that followed. He played all his life on the cornet bequeathed to him by Bix Beiderbecke and died of lung cancer shortly before his 84th birthday.

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personal data
SURNAME McPartland, Jimmy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McPartland, James Douglas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician and cornetist
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1991
Place of death Port Washington , New York