Jack Mitchell

Francis John "Jack" Mitchell OAM (29 May 1926-11 March 2021) was an Australian jazz historian and discographer.

Life Jack Mitchell was born in Sydney in 1926. His first job was an assistant cinema projectionist, before he entered university in 1948 to become a dentist. After becoming a member of the Sydney Swing Music Club in 1944, Mitchell began reading Australian jazz journal Jazz Notes, and became interested in jazz history and discographies. The project was finally published as the book Australian Jazz on Record 1925–80, published by the National Film and Sound Archive in 1988, Corrections for his books were published in the journal Matrix, where Mitchell published a column also listing new releases in Australian jazz.

In 2011, his entire discography project was collected as a CD-ROM titled Australian Jazz on Record 1923–2010, and it continued to receive updates up to his death. The two had met during the 1960s, and Bell provided the forward to Mitchell's Australian Jazz on Record 1925–80.

Outside of his discography work, Mitchell wrote other books documenting jazz history, such as Coggy a biography on Australian trombonist and bandleader Frank Coughlan, Blistered Heels : Jazz and hot dance music in Australia in the twenties, and Happy Feet on Australian popular music in the 1930s. and presented a program Jazz Cabaret on Lithgow Community Radio EZY-FM 90.5 between 2004-2019.

In 2019, Mitchell received an Order of Australia award for service to jazz music.

Following his death in 2021,