SHAZAM

Trombonist Jimmy Jones is an early brassman from the Kansas City jazz scene, best known as a member of George E. Lee & His Novelty Singing Orchestra in the '20s and early '30s. While it is true that the trombonist was thus part of a group that was matched only by the famed Bennie Moten band in terms of popularity, with benefit of hindsight it seems like the competition involved two different kinds of music entirely. While Moten's sound was an essential part of the Kansas City jazz scene and thus intrinsic to the genre's historical development, what Lee and his wife Julia Lee performed was more vaudeville than jazz.

Lee's outfit, its repertoire thick with goofy novelty songs, was for the most part a territory band, working within a fixed region of easy driving accessibility, in this case the American Southwest. Jones also worked with the band at Chicago and New York shows, however. He is not one of the Kansas City players who remained active in the long-term, nor did anyone rediscover him shuffling around the town as a senior citizen. The logical explanations involving dropping out of music or just plain dropping dead substitute for any substantial information. The trombonist should not be confused with better-known players such as the pianist, arranger, and conductor of the same name. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi