He started off playing guitar as a child. He switched to clarinet at age 15, taking lessons from Lorenzo Tio, Jr. (who taught so many musicians of the day) and a 13 year old Sidney Bechet. Noone progressed quickly and was playing professionally with Freddie Keppard, Kid Ory and Buddy Petit by 1912. He joined the Original Creole Orchestra in Chicago in 1917 followed by King Oliver's band the next year.
In 1920 he joined Doc Cook's Dreamland Orchestra and played with them for 6 years and although he recorded with Cook, his rise to fame would come when he started his own band at the Apex Club in 1927. It was an unusual quintet with Noone on clarinet, Joe Poston on alto sax (always playing the melody behind Noone) and Earl Hines on piano. They would record some early classics including "Sweet Lorraine" and "Four or Five Times".
The band worked steadily through the 30's, adding trumpeter Charlie Shavers on some recordings and a young Joe Williams on vocals (sadly, he never recorded with the band). In 1935, Noone moved to New York to start a band and club with Wellman Braud which was not successful, sending him back to Chicago to play in various clubs until 1943 when he moved to Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, Noone joined Kid Ory's band, which for a time was featured on a radio program hosted by Orson Wells. Noone played only a few times on the program before he unexpectedly died of a heart attack at the age of 48. Ory's Band played a blues piece on the air in his tribute (titled Blues for Jimmy Noone by Welles) which became a regular number for Ory's band. Noone's legacy would be his substantial influence on clarinetists of the swing era.
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