Leslie Jones (conductor)

Jones played saxhorn in the local Salvation Army band in his home town. At age eleven, he became an organist and learned to play trombone. He took music lessons from the composer Theophilus Hemmings, and eventually became a Trinity's Licentiate (LTCL), an Associate of the Royal College of Organists (ARCO), and an Associate of the Royal College of Music (ARCM).[1] Jones also studied law, became a solicitor, and set up his own practice which he ran for thirty years.[1]

Before World War II, Jones formed the Newcastle-under-Lyme String Orchestra (today Newcastle Strings)[2] and after the war he founded the Stoke-on-Trent Symphony Orchestra.[1] Later, he created his own Leslie Jones Orchestra, led by Martin Milner, a leader of The Hallé Orchestra, using professionals and qualified students. This orchestra gave more than two dozens of concerts each year.[3]

After having retired from the law practice, Jones moved south, and could devote more time to music.[1] In 1957, he created The Little Orchestra of London. The name was suggested by Jones' son, Leslie Jnr, as a counterpart to Thomas Scherman's Little Orchestra Society in New York.[3]

The players came from the London "pool", which consisted of prominent orchestral musicians – James Galway, Alan Loveday and Derek Wickens, to mention a few.[4][5] Raymond Cohen led the orchestra in the early days, and in later years the leader was William Armon.[6] Occasionally the orchestra played at open concerts, but the main purpose seems to have been to do gramophone recordings.[5]

Jones was at the forefront of the movement to reduce the size of Haydn orchestras, and usually directed himself from the keyboard.[7] Being an early advocate of period performance practice, he recorded Joseph Haydn's "Paris" and "London" symphonies.[5][8] He recorded about fifty of Haydn's symphonies. The interpretations of the late symphonies of Haydn were very 'classical' for the period of their performance.[5] The early recordings were released on Pye Records.[4][8] From 1966 Jones started to record for Nonesuch Records,[9] while it seems that after 1969 he recorded mostly with Oryx records.