Carmell Jones

Jones was born in Kansas City, Kansas, United States.[1] He started piano lessons at age five, and trumpet lessons at age seven. His first professional work was with Kansas City musicians Nathan Davis, Cleanhead Vinson and Frank Smith. He moved to California in 1961,[1] and worked as a studio musician for several years, including in the orchestras for two movie soundtracks, Seven Days In May and The Manchurian Candidate, the latter starring Frank Sinatra.[3] He released two albums as a leader for Pacific Jazz at this time while recording as a sideman with Bud Shank, Onzy Matthews, Curtis Amy, Harold Land, and Gerald Wilson.[4]

He toured with Horace Silver in 1964–65,[1] and was on Silver's seminal 1965 Blue Note album Song for My Father. In 1965, he moved to Germany where he lived for 15 years,[1] working with Paul Kuhn and the SFB Big Band (Sender Freies Berlin) from 1968 to 1980. There he worked with musicians such as Milo Pavlovic, Herb Geller, Leo Wright, Rudi Wilfer and Eugen Cicero. Jones returned to the US in 1980, working as a teacher and appearing at local clubs in Kansas City.[1] He released one additional album as a leader in 1982 entitled Carmell Jones Returns, on the Revelation label.[5] Jones died of heart failure on November 7, 1996, in Kansas City at the age of 60.[2]

In 2003, Mosaic released a three-CD set of Jones material.[6]