Jonathan David Samuel Jones, also known as Papa Jo Jones, was an American jazz drummer, born on October 7, 1911, in Chicago, Illinois, and passed away on September 3, 1985, at the age of 73.
Jones began his music career as a drummer and tap-dancer in carnival shows before joining Walter Page's band, the Blue Devils, in Oklahoma City in the late 1920s. He recorded with trumpeter Lloyd Hunter's Serenaders in 1931 and later joined pianist Count Basie's band in 1934, where he became a pioneer in jazz percussion and anchored the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section from 1934 to 1948.
Jones was one of the first drummers to promote the use of brushes on drums and shifting the role of timekeeping from the bass drum to the hi-hat cymbal, which greatly influenced later drummers such as Buddy Rich, Kenny Clarke, Roy Haynes, Max Roach, and Louie Bellson.
He also starred in several films, including the musical short Jammin' the Blues in 1944, and performed regularly at the West End jazz club in New York City, where he was known for his artistry on the drums and his irascible temperament.
Jones was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979 and received an American Jazz Masters fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1985. His autobiography, Rifftide: The Life and Opinions of Papa Jo Jones, was posthumously published in 2011.
Jones is sometimes confused with another influential jazz drummer, Philly Joe Jones, who passed away just a few days after him.
