Louis Thomas Jordan was born in Brinkley, Arkansas, on July 8, 1908. His father, James Aaron Jordan, taught music and led the Brinkley Brass Band and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Louis started on clarinet at seven, moved on to saxophone, and in his teens joined the Rabbit Foot Minstrels himself before studying music at Arkansas Baptist College. By the late 1920s he was working professionally, and in the early 1930s he was playing in Philadelphia and New York with the trumpeter Charlie Gaines. On December 21, 1932, Gaines's group, with Jordan on alto saxophone and clarinet, backed Louis Armstrong on a Victor date in Camden, New Jersey, that produced a medley of Armstrong's hits. In 1934 he recorded with Clarence Williams, and he spent time in Stuff Smith's orchestra.

From late 1936 until mid-1938 he played alto saxophone and sang in Chick Webb's orchestra, the Harlem band that spent much of that period accompanying Ella Fitzgerald. Jordan was mainly a section player there, with little solo space, though he sang on a few Decca sides, including "Rusty Hinge" (1937). When he left Webb in 1938 he had a different idea in mind: a small group that kept the swing band's drive and added entertainment. He began with a nine-piece band, cut it to a sextet for a residency at the Elks Rendezvous club on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, and made his first Decca recordings in December 1938 under the Elks Rendezvous Band name. By 1939 he was billed as Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five, a name he kept no matter how many players were on the stand.

The breakthrough came in 1942, after Jordan and the band moved to Los Angeles and he began making Soundies, the three-minute films shown on coin-operated movie jukeboxes. Between 1942 and 1951 he placed more than fifty records on the rhythm and blues chart, and eighteen of them reached No. 1. The run included "What's the Use of Getting Sober," "Ration Blues," "G.I. Jive" (also a No. 1 pop record in 1944), "Is You Is or Is You Ain't (Ma' Baby)," "Caldonia," "Buzz Me," "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie," "Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens," "Let the Good Times Roll," "Beans and Corn Bread," "Saturday Night Fish Fry" and "Blue Light Boogie." Many of his Decca records were produced by Milt Gabler. He also recorded heavily for Armed Forces Radio and the V-Disc program during the war, appeared in 14 Soundies, played a specialty spot in the Hollywood features Follow the Boys and Swing Parade of 1946, and starred in the musical short Caldonia (1945) and three feature films built around his band: Beware (1946), Reet, Petite and Gone (1947) and Look-Out Sister (1947).

Decca paired him with some of its biggest stars. "My Baby Said Yes (Yip Yip de Hootie)" and "Your Socks Don't Match" were duets with Bing Crosby, recorded in Los Angeles on July 26, 1944. With Ella Fitzgerald he made "Stone Cold Dead in the Market" (recorded October 1945, a No. 1 R&B record in 1946), "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (1949) and "I'll Never Be Free" (1950). In August 1950 he recorded "Life Is So Peculiar" and "You Rascal You" with Louis Armstrong. A big band he assembled in 1951 lost money and was gone by the end of the year, and in 1952 he went back to a Tympany Five.

The hits stopped as rock and roll took over the market. After his Decca contract ended in 1954 he recorded for Aladdin, then for RCA's X and Vik labels in 1955, then for Mercury. The Mercury album Somebody Up There Digs Me (recorded October 22 and 23, 1956, in New York) re-cut his hits with arrangements by Quincy Jones and a studio band that included Budd Johnson, Sam Taylor, Jimmy Cleveland, Ernie Royal and the guitarist Mickey Baker. Man, We're Wailin' followed in 1958. In 1962 he toured England with Chris Barber's band, and the two recorded together. In the early 1960s he recorded for Ray Charles's Tangerine label, including the 1964 album Hallelujah... Louis Jordan Is Back!, and on November 6, 1973, he recorded I Believe in Music in Paris for the French Black & Blue label with a quintet. He passed away from a heart attack in Los Angeles on February 4, 1975, and is buried at Mt. Olive Catholic Cemetery in St. Louis.

Recognition came mostly after his death. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, where he is described as an early influence. The Recording Academy gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018, and several of his records are in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Five Guys Named Moe, a stage musical built on his songs, opened in London's West End in 1990, won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment, and reached Broadway in 1992. In 1999 B.B. King recorded an entire album of his songs, Let the Good Times Roll: The Music of Louis Jordan.

Most of what made Jordan famous was not jazz in the narrow sense, and it is stated plainly here. His Decca hits were jump blues and rhythm and blues, comic story songs about food, drink, money and women, delivered in a shouted, call-and-response style for a broad audience of Black and white listeners, and many of the later Aladdin, X, Vik and Mercury sides chased the rock and roll market. He was also a novelty act and a film personality, and the Tympany Five's records were built around his vocals and humor as much as around the band.

The jazz side is documented and real. He came up as a swing-era reed player, worked in Chick Webb's band, and recorded with Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. His small group combined riffs in the manner of Count Basie's band with a boogie-woogie shuffle, with short, hot solos on alto saxophone, an electric guitar added in 1945, and occasional organ from the pianist in the rhythm section. The writer Scott Yanow calls him essentially a swing stylist rather than a honking R&B saxophonist, and Chris Barber, who toured with him in 1962, said history had boxed Jordan in as a comedy vocalist when he was a superb singer and an alto player who seemed to sing and play at the same moment.

His influence ran in two directions. Chuck Berry said he modeled his approach on Jordan's, and Bill Haley, Little Richard and James Brown are among others who pointed to him. Ray Charles and B.B. King recorded his material and acknowledged him as a model. Among jazz players, Sonny Rollins took up the alto saxophone at eleven after hearing him, and Hank Crawford named him among his early models.