- Jazz cornetist
- Played with the cornet Bix Beiderbecke gave to him throughout his career.
- One of the originators of "Chicago Jazz."
- Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1992.
- He remarried Marian McPartland in early 1991, but he died shortly after.
- Played with many of the great jazz groups of the 1920's and 30's, including the Wolverines, Benny Goodman, Ben Pollack, Art Kassel, Smith Ballew and Horace Heidt.
- After the war, McPartland occasionally led smaller Dixieland-tinged combos in Chicago, New York (at the Metropole) and on tour through Europe and in South Africa (1972). He performed with his wife Marian McPartland at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1978.
- Led his own eight-piece band in Chicago from 1937, with himself on trumpet. Most popular in New York and in the Midwest, the group eventually disbanded in 1941 and McPartland was drafted into the U.S. Army the following year. He took part in the Normandy invasion, and, while still on active duty, married the English pianist Marian Turner.
- Former brother-in-law of Hannah Williams.
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