Jimmy Jones (pianist)

Jimmy Jones and John Levy, 1947
Photography by William P. Gottlieb
Sol Yaged, John Levy, Jimmy Jones, and Rex Stewart, Pied Piper, New York, c. September 1946
Photograph by William P. Gottlieb

James Henry Jones (December 30, 1918, Memphis, Tennessee – April 29, 1982, Burbank, California)[1] was an American jazz pianist and arranger.

Biography

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Jones was born in Memphis but raised in Chicago.[2] As a child, he learned guitar and piano.[1] Jones notes that playing guitar "influenced my piano harmonically ... in thinking in terms of groups of notes rather than single lines .... [W]hen I played guitar it was more or less in a chord style like Wes Montgomery's."[3]

Jones worked in Chicago orchestras from 1936 and played in a trio with Stuff Smith from 1943 to 1945.[1] He made his first recordings, under Smith's leadership, in 1944.[4] Following this, he played with Don Byas, Dizzy Gillespie (1945), J.C. Heard (1945–47), Buck Clayton (1946) and Etta Jones.[1] He also recorded a series of piano solos in 1947, including Debussy's Clair de lune and works by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol. Jazz critic Stanley Dance notes, "From the very beginning, Jones insisted, his greatest inspiration was Duke Ellington, and he had been encouraged in this by his parents, who took him to hear Ellington whenever he played in Chicago."[5] Jones also particularly admired Art Tatum and considered him to be "the quintessential pianist."[6] Anatol Schenker called Jones' 1947 solo recordings "extraordinary," noting his "delicate and highly personal use of block chords .... His playing on these solos makes one ponder whether Jimmy Jones played on a fragile keyboard made of glass."[7]

Jones accompanied Sarah Vaughan from 1947 to 1952 and then again from 1954 to 1958 after a long illness,[1] becoming her musical director.[8] In 1954, he made a trio recording, played on a classic album with Vaughan and Clifford Brown, and accompanied the latter on his European tour. Just a week after the Vaughan/Brown album, he recorded another classic album with Brown and Helen Merrill. In 1958, he accompanied Anita O'Day in her celebrated appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, documented in the film Jazz on a Summer's Day, and worked with other singers such as Dakota Staton, Pat Suzuki, and Morgana King around this time. Jones enjoyed the challenge of being an accompanist and said, "You always have to be musically aware. Listen to the great accompanists—Bobby Tucker with Billy Eckstine, Hank Jones with Ella, Ellis Larkins. They illustrate what I mean."[9]

As a pianist and arranger in New York City,[1] he worked in the 1960s with Harry Belafonte, Johnny Hodges, Budd Johnson, Nat Gonella, and Clark Terry, among others. He accompanied Chris Connor on her version of "Where Flamingoes Fly" and played with Ellington's orchestra on recordings with Ella Fitzgerald for the album Ella at Duke's Place.[1] Jones also "occasionally sat in for [Ellington] and rehearsed with the orchestra" and became Fitzgerald's musical director.[10] He enjoyed "a very long and close musical relationship with Ellington and [Billy] Strayhorn."[11]

Jones did a set with his trio (Jimmy Hughart and Grady Tate) at the Antibes Jazz Festival in 1966 and the following year toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic. In the 1970s, he worked with Kenny Burrell and Cannonball Adderley. Although "gravely ill," Jones participated in Burrell's Ellington Is Forever tribute recordings,[12] contributing a brief solo version of Strayhorn's "Take the "A" Train" as the first volume's closer. "As Jimmy sounded the final note ... Jerome Richardson murmured with awe, 'He got everything there was to get out of that. He has just put it in requiem status.'"[13] However, lack of interest led Jones to return to his hometown of Memphis "[c]ompletely disillusioned."[14]

In the course of his career, Jones played piano on recordings by Harry Sweets Edison, Ben Webster, Big Joe Turner, Coleman Hawkins, Frank Wess, Milt Jackson, Sidney Bechet, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, and Thad Jones, among others, and worked as an arranger for Wes Montgomery, Nancy Wilson, Sandler and Young, Shirley Horn, Joe Williams, Billy Taylor, Carmen McRae, and Chris Connor, becoming "[o]ne of the most sought after arrangers in New York."[15]

Schenker called Jones "a very competent occasionally dazzling pianist with an extremely elaborate technique and technical skills. His modern way of arranging is well recognized, too."[16] Jordi Pujol notes that Jones possessed "an uncanny ability to strike a delicate balance of restraint and richness" in his playing.[17] Dave Brubeck cited Jones as an influence and said of him: "He didn't like to solo. Harmonically, though, he was one of the greatest players I ever heard."[18]

Discography

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As leader

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As sideman

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With Kenny Burrell

With Buck Clayton
With Harry Edison
With Ella Fitzgerald

With Johnny Griffin

With Johnny Hodges

With Illinois Jacquet

With Budd Johnson

With Thad Jones

With Beverly Kenney

  • Sings with Jimmy Jones and 'The Basie-Ites' (Roost, 1957)

With Helen Merrill

With Joe Newman

With Paul Quinichette

With Sonny Stitt

With Clark Terry

With Ben Webster

With Sarah Vaughan

With Nancy Wilson

With Monica Zetterlund

  • The Lost Tapes at Bell Sound Studios (BMG Sweden, recorded 1960, released 1996)

As arranger

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With Johnny Hodges

With Milt Jackson

With Billy Taylor

With Nancy Wilson

With Sandler and Young

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g Colin Larkin, ed. (1992). The Guinness Who's Who of Jazz (First ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 231/2. ISBN 0-85112-580-8.
  2. ^ Dance, Stanley. The World of Duke Ellington, Da Capo Press, 1970, p. 212.
  3. ^ Dance, p. 212.
  4. ^ Schenker, Anatol, liner notes, Jimmy Jones, 1946-1947, Classics Records, 2003.
  5. ^ Dance, p. 213.
  6. ^ Pujol, Jordi, liner notes, The Splendid Mr. Jones, Fresh Sound Recordings, 2023, p. 1.
  7. ^ Schenker, liner notes.
  8. ^ Dance, p. 213.
  9. ^ Pujol, p. 6.
  10. ^ Schenker, liner notes.
  11. ^ Willard, Patricia, liner notes, Ellington Is Forever, Volume 1 by Kenny Burrell, Fantasy, 1975.
  12. ^ Burrell, Kenny, liner notes, Ellington Is Forever, Volume 1, Fantasy, 1975.
  13. ^ Willard, liner notes.
  14. ^ Schenker, liner notes.
  15. ^ Dance, p. 212.
  16. ^ Schenker, liner notes.
  17. ^ Pujol, p. 9.
  18. ^ Lyons, Len. The Great Jazz Pianists, Da Capo Press, 1983, p. 107.
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