Jacques Gauthé was a French clarinettist and soprano saxophonist who left France for New Orleans and became one of the best-known European players in the city's traditional jazz scene, leading his Creole Rice Jazz Band on records from 1981 onward. He was born on June 12, 1939, in Gaujac, in the Gascony region of southwest France. AllMusic says he began piano and music theory at five, heard jazz on the radio as the Second World War ended, and took up the clarinet at 11. On a trip to Paris to see relatives he heard Sidney Bechet in concert, and after he met Bechet in 1950 the older musician became his mentor and friend, answering the boy's questions and letting him visit his Paris home often.

He turned professional while still a teenager. English Wikipedia says he studied with Claude Luter and Bechet, and that in 1957 he formed his own band, which played alongside visiting Americans including Don Byas, Mezz Mezzrow, Albert Nicholas, Lucky Thompson and Benny Waters. In the 1960s he led the Old Time Jazz Band, a Toulouse group whose sidemen included Enzo Mucci and Claude Tissendier. AllMusic and French Wikipedia add that the band took a prize at the San Sebastiàn Jazz Festival in Spain and appeared at the Jazz Band Ball in Paris.

In 1972 he moved to New Orleans, the city of Bechet's birth. He played at Preservation Hall and in the Kid Thomas band, and worked with the trumpeters Alvin Alcorn, Wallace Davenport and Teddy Riley, the drummer Freddie Kohlman, the trombonists Freddy Lonzo and Louis Nelson and the pianist Steve Pistorius. French Wikipedia says he also worked as a restaurant chef, first at the Plimsoll Club and then at Galatoire's, and a later reviewer notes that he gave up the kitchen to play full time. Alongside his own band he played with the Razzberry Ragtimers, the Louisiana Repertory Jazz Band and the Classic Jazz Orchestra.

His Creole Rice Jazz Band made Riz à la Creole in New Orleans on August 31, 1981 (G.H.B., issued in 1986), with Alcorn on trumpet, Kohlman on drums and Waldren "Frog" Joseph on trombone for part of the program. Through the late 1980s and the 1990s the band recorded for Stomp Off and G.H.B., among them Someday Sweetheart (G.H.B., 1992, recorded in 1989), Creole Jazz (Stomp Off, 1993, recorded in July 1992) and, for the Bechet centenary, Echoes of Sidney Bechet (Good Time Jazz, 1997), which he produced, with Duke Heitger, Mike Owen, Lars Edegran, Chris Tyle, Steve Pistorius and Tom Saunders. He stayed in touch with France. he recorded Red Hot Reeds with Luter in New Orleans in April 1986, the two of them shared a cassette recorded live at the Jazz Meridien in New Orleans in 1988 with the Paris clarinettist Maxim Saury, and in 1990 he made Paris Blues for Stomp Off as co-leader, with the clarinettist Alain Marquet, of the Clarinet Serenaders, with the pianist Louis Mazetier. French Wikipedia records that he returned for concerts in France, among them Jazz in Marciac in 1991. In May 1997 he and Luter recorded Bechet Summit (G.H.B., 1999) in New Orleans with the American clarinettist Bob Wilber.

His last albums as leader included All Alone with the Rhythm, a quartet record made at the Jazzology studios in New Orleans in October 2000, and he is credited on clarinet with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on Shake That Thing (2004). French Wikipedia says Hurricane Katrina destroyed his house and the instruments and memorabilia in it in 2005. Jacques Gauthé passed away on June 10, 2007, in Gaujac, two days before his 68th birthday, while on a tour of his home region. A tribute album, Petite fleur, by the New Bumpers Revival Jazz Band, was released in 2009.

Gauthé played New Orleans traditional jazz on clarinet and soprano saxophone, in the Bechet line by way of Claude Luter. Reviewers of his records hear the Bechet influence but describe a lighter player, with less vibrato and volume than his teacher and none of Bechet's competitiveness, who blends easily into an ensemble and is at home in the clarinet's low register. A reviewer for the Early Jazz Society also hears traces of Luter and Albert Nicholas. His repertoire mixed traditional-jazz standards ("Doctor Jazz", "Someday Sweetheart", "Wolverine Blues") with Bechet's French compositions such as "Petite Fleur" and "Les Oignons", and AllMusic files him under Early Jazz and New Orleans Jazz Revival. Traditional jazz is the whole of his body of work.