The Austin High Gang was the name given to a young group of young, white musicians from the west side of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, near Austin High School

Austin Community Academy High School

Austin Community Academy High School was a public high school located at 231 N Pine Avenue in the Austin community on the west side of Chicago, Illinois. The school opened in 1890, and was named after Henry W. Austin, a local real estate developer The online newsletter Chicago-Catalyst.org called...

, who rose to prominence as originators of the Chicago style of jazz in the 1920s.

The members of the Austin High Gang were:

• Jimmy McPartland
  Jimmy McPartland
  James Dugald McPartland , better known as Jimmy McPartland, was an American cornetist and one of the originators of Chicago Jazz...
  
   - cornet
• Dick McPartland
  Richard McPartland
  Dick McPartland was the older brother of Jimmy McPartland, and he was an early member of the Austin High School Gang that helped establish Chicago-style jazz in the 1920s. McPartland started out on the violin before switching to banjo and guitar...
  
   - banjo, guitar
• Frank Teschemacher
  Frank Teschemacher
  Frank Teschemacher was an American jazz clarinetist and alto-saxophonist, associated with the "Austin High" gang...
  
   - clarinet
• Bud Freeman
  Bud Freeman
  Lawrence "Bud" Freeman was a U.S. jazz musician, bandleader, and composer, known mainly for playing the tenor saxophone, but also able at the clarinet. He had a smooth and full tenor sax style with a heavy robust swing. He was one of the most influential and important jazz tenor saxophonists of...
  
   - tenor saxophone
• Jim Lanigan
  Jim Lanigan
  Jim Lanigan was an American jazz bassist and tubist.Lanigan learned piano and violin as a child, and played piano and drums in the Austin High School Blue Friars before specializing on bass and tuba...
  
   - string bass, tuba
• Dave North - piano

Close associates of the Austin High Gang included Eddie Condon

Eddie Condon

Albert Edwin Condon , better known as Eddie Condon, was a jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. A leading figure in the so-called "Chicago school" of early Dixieland, he also played piano and sang on occasion....

 (banjo, guitar), Dave Tough

Dave Tough

Dave Tough was an American jazz drummer associated with both Dixieland and swing jazz in the 1930s and 1940s...

, George Wettling

George Wettling

George Wettling was an American jazz drummer.He was one of the young white Chicagoans who fell in love with jazz as a result of hearing King Oliver's band at the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago in the early 1920s...

 and Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...

 (drums), Floyd O'Brien

Floyd O'Brien

Floyd O'Brien was an American jazz trombonist.O'Brien first played in Chicago in the 1920s with the Austin High School Gang; later in the decade he played with Earl Fuller, Floyd Town, Charles Pierce, Thelma Terry, and Husk O'Hare. Between 1930-31 he worked in a pit band at a theater in Des...

 (trombone), Muggsy Spanier

Muggsy Spanier

Francis Joseph Julian "Muggsy" Spanier was a prominent cornet player based in Chicago. He was renowned as the best trumpet/cornet in Chicago until Bix Beiderbecke entered the scene....

 (cornet), Mezz Mezzrow

Mezz Mezzrow

Milton Mesirow, better known as Mezz Mezzrow was an American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist from Chicago, Illinois. Mezzrow is well known for organizing and financing historic recording sessions with Tommy Ladnier and Sidney Bechet. Mezzrow also recorded a number of times with Bechet and...

, Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

 and Rod Cless

Rod Cless

George Roderick "Rod" Cless was an American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist, perhaps best-known for his work on sixteen Muggsy Spanier tunes for Bluebird Records...

 (clarinet and saxes), Joe Sullivan

Joe Sullivan

Michael Joseph "Joe" O'Sullivan was an American jazz pianist.Sullivan was the ninth child of Irish immigrant parents. He studied classical piano for 12 years and at age 17, he began to play popular music in a club where he was exposed to jazz...

, Jess Stacy

Jess Stacy

Jess Stacy was an American jazz pianist who gained prominence during the Swing era.-Early life:Stacy was born Jesse Alexandria Stacy in Bird's Point, Missouri, a small town across the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois. In 1918 Stacy moved to Cape Girardeau, Missouri...

, Art Hodes

Art Hodes

Arthur W. Hodes , known professionally as Art Hodes, was an American jazz pianist.-Biography:...

, Frank Melrose

Frank Melrose

Franklyn Taft Melrose was an American jazz and blues pianist, who recorded as Kansas City Frank.He was born in Sumner, Illinois, the younger brother of Walter and Lester Melrose who set up the Melrose Brothers Music Company in Chicago in 1918, and went on to become leading figures in the Chicago...

 (piano) and Red McKenzie

Red McKenzie

Red McKenzie was an American jazz musician. He was the best-known, and one of the only, comb players in jazz history....

(vocals, comb-and-paper, and recording session organizer).

External links