Bassist John Bany jammin’ with Rusty.

 

 

Rusty on drums, Nick Tountas  on double bass and in the photo below the addition of our good friend pianist  Jim Ryan on piano at Chambers in Niles, Illinois. 

 

Isham Russell Jones II aka "Rusty" Jones (born April 13, 1942 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa) is an American jazz drummer who is Chicago-based. Music is a family affair in Jones’ life. His parents were in the music business long before he was born. Jones’ father was a saxophonist and his mother a vocalist (appearing under the name of Gretchen Lee) with most of their gigs being in and around the Chicago area and an occasional one here and there nationally. His mother was working at the Bismark Hotel in 1936 when the two were wed. Other musicians in Jones’ family were his grandfather, a trombonist/bandleader named Frank Jones, who worked in the Saginaw and Detroit, Michigan area and Jones’ mother’s brother, Dean Herrick, an early artist on the Hammond organ.

The most famous of these family musicians was Jones’ great uncle, Isham Jones who became a renowned American bandleader/songwriter beginning with the 1920s and ending in 1936 when he initially retired. He wrote popular songs of the era such as, "It Had To Be You (song)", "I’ll See You In My Dreams", "The One I Love Belongs To Somebody Else", "Swingin’ Down The Lane", "On The Alamo", "There Is No Greater Love", "We’re In The Army Now" and several others.

Influenced by the likes of such a musically-oriented family, Jones began playing drums at the age of thirteen and continued on throughout his college years, choosing traditional and modern jazz as his preferred mode of music. He went "on the road" after graduating college in 1965 from the University of Iowa with a degree in history and political science, to "get it out of his system", but he never stopped his pursuit of a musical vocation. He moved to the Chicago area in 1967.

Jones appeared with Chicago musician Judy Roberts from 1968 to 1972, soon after becoming a member of  George Shearing‘s trio from 1972 to 1978. Later years he accompanied pianist Marian McPartland for a few years and then freelanced throughout Chicago with several bands, touring the United States and Europe. He has worked quite a bit with Johnny Gabor, Jim Beebe, Charlie Hocks, Curt Warren, Mark Pompe, Frank Portolese, Danny Long, Ron Surace, Adam Makowicz, Larry Novak, Patricia Barber,  Frank D’Rone, Art Hodes, Ira Sullivan, J.R. Monterose, Stéphane Grappelli .

Jones has done short gigs with Chuck Hedges, Bill Porter, Sylvia Symms, Polly Podewell, Jim Clark, Buddy DeFranco, Art Van Damme, Kai Winding, Curtis Fuller, Lee Konitz, Bill Davison ("Wild Bill"), Anita O’Day, Mark Murphy, Flip Phillips,Morgan King, Red Holloway, Eddie Higgins, Isaac Cole ("Ike"), Clifford Jordan, Franz Jackson, Bobby Enriquez, Monty Alexander, and Catherine Whitney among many others. He has made several recordings (about 43 sessions between 1958 and 2004) with many of these previously mentioned musicians. Currently, Jones appears quite regularly around the Chicago area with the Johnny Gabor Trio  featuring vocalist Connie Marshall.