Jacques Di Donato is a French clarinetist, saxophonist and drummer, born in Bourg-en-Bresse on August 27, 1942. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, contemporary composition and the classical clarinet repertoire, and most of the records that carry his name are filed under jazz and free improvisation. Henri Selmer Paris, whose instruments he plays, lists him among its jazz artists. He turned 84 in August 2026.

He began on the drums at about twelve, playing in his father's dance orchestra, and in a 1998 interview with Jazz Hot he said he was self-taught on them. His father then decided the drums were not a serious instrument and gave him a clarinet and a saxophone. He studied at the music school in Béziers, then at the conservatoires of Montpellier and Versailles, and finally at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he took first prizes in clarinet and in chamber music and met Bernard Lubat. The two played together in the classrooms before moving into studio, television, theatre and cabaret work, and he also accompanied singers of the variety scene.

His first jazz engagements were in the Paris big bands of the 1960s and 1970s. On Jef Gilson's Œil Vision (1964) he is credited on alto saxophone on one piece, "Satirique", in a band that included Jean-Louis Chautemps, Jean-Luc Ponty, Daniel Humair and Henri Texier. He recorded with the big bands of Ivan Jullien and Jean-Claude Naude, and he is among the reeds on Martial Solal's big band album of 1981. On Solal et son orchestre jouent André Hodeir (Carlyne Music, recorded March 30 to April 1, 1984) he plays the clarinet solo on "Arte della Commedia Dell'", a piece by André Hodeir. In the same years he was part of the contemporary-music world: the Ensemble Musique Vivante under Diego Masson, Paul Méfano's Ensemble 2e2m, and the Atelier Musique de Ville-d'Avray under Jean-Louis Petit in 1972. From 1978 to 1990 he was a soloist with the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. From 1984 to 2007 he taught clarinet at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Lyon, and he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1985. In 1998 he designed a signature model of B-flat and A clarinets for Selmer.

The 1980s brought the ensembles that made his jazz reputation. With Jean-Louis Chautemps, François Jeanneau and Philippe Maté he formed the Quatuor de saxophones, which recorded Double Messieurs (Open, 1980) and Mad Sax 2 (CY Records, 1982); on the second he is credited on soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet and synthesizer. In 1983 he played saxophones and bass clarinet on Jeanneau's Terrains Vagues (Owl), with Henri Texier, François Couturier and Daniel Humair in the band. At the start of the 1990s he joined the Trio de clarinettes with Louis Sclavis and Armand Angster, whose concert from the Total Music Meeting in Berlin in November 1990 came out on FMP in 1991, and which joined the Arcado String Trio for Green Dolphy Suite (Enja, recorded September 1994).

As a leader he has favored small, open groups. His quintet, with Xavier Charles, Claude Tchamitchian, Philippe Deschepper and Eric Echampard, recorded Clic!!! (PAN Music, 1993). With Charles he made the clarinet duo record Du Slavon Glagol (Khôkhôt, 1996) and co-directs the large ensemble Système Friche, whose Le Chant des Pistes was recorded at Mhère in June 2019 and released in 2021. He created and directed the festival Fruits de Mhère, Les Champs de l'Improvisation, and has played in the Michel Edelin quartet (Déblocage d'émergence, 1995; Resurgence, 2013) and quintet (... Et la Tosca Passa ..., 2002, with Daniel Humair and François Couturier), in Gaël Mevel's groups on Leo Records, in Trio Rives, in the Clinamen Trio, and in a duo with the accordionist Bruno Maurice, recorded live at Uzeste in August 2018 for L'Homme de la route. France Musique devoted a portrait in its À l'improviste series to him.

Di Donato is a player who refuses a single idiom. He came up through the dance band, the conservatoire and the Paris studios, and he treats classical technique, free jazz and written contemporary music as one working vocabulary. The magazine Jazzman has credited him with pushing the technical limits of the clarinet in today's music, and the critic Francis Marmande described him as a musician who is always where nobody expects him. In the Jazz Hot interview he said that American jazz had become something like a folklore to be respected but not copied, and that he preferred to take what he had lived through, including the bal musette, into his own improvising. His discography reflects that: reed-heavy collective groups (the saxophone quartet, the trio of clarinettes), free duos in which he also plays drums and percussion, and large improvising ensembles. Discogs files his records under jazz, free improvisation and avant-garde jazz; the contemporary-classical side of his work has no tag in the site's list and is described here instead. Players who studied with him at Lyon include Alain Billard.