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Kevin Jones | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Bujo Kevin Jones |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | musician |
| Instruments | percussion |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Labels | Motéma Music |
| Associated acts | Babatunde Lea |
| Website | www |
Kevin Jones is an American jazz percussionist and band leader. Jones's music is influenced by that of Cuba and Congo. [1]
Jones grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. [2] He is the brother of the musician Patrick Stanfield Jones. [3] As a teenager he studied under percussionists Babatunde Lea, Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, Congolese drummers Titos Sompa and Coster Massamba, Charli Persip and Max Roach. Jones began playing percussion professionally at the age of 13 with a group called Spoonbread, who were signed to All Platinum Records of Englewood, NJ. In 1978, aged 18, he played in a sextet led by Charles McPherson on the album Free Bop! [2] [4] He studied music at the University of Massachusetts and Jazzmobile simultaneously until 1979, when his Professor, saxophonist Archie Shepp, took him on tour to Europe, where he recorded his second album. Just months later he was hired by The Isley Brothers and toured and later recorded a host of records with them.
Jones has performed with, among others, Whitney Houston, The Isley Brothers, Jermaine Jackson, Archie Shepp, Winard Harper, Ray Copeland, Talib Kibwe, Babatunde Lea, James Weidman, Clifford Adams, and Malaki Ma Congo Drum and Dance Ensemble. [5]
Jones and the pianist Kelvin Sholar formed the band Tenth World in 1999. [6] The band members included Jamieo Brown (drums, percussion), Brian Horton (saxophone and flute), George Makinto (flute, percussion, African percussion), Kevin Louis (trumpet), and Luisito Quintero (timbales, percussion, drums).
Bill Milkowski writing in JazzTimes described Jones's first album as leader, Tenth World, produced by Babatunde Lea, as combining "the spirit of Africa with modern jazz on his impressive debut." [7] Milkowski wrote of the group's second album, Live!, "Percussionist Bujo Kevin Jones underscores this vibrant sextet with an authentic Afro-Cuban pulse". [8]
In 2014, Jones released the album Who's That Lady? through Motéma Music. The band included singers Derrick Dupree and Christelle Durandy, pianist Zen Zadravec, drummer Jerard Snell, guitarist Michael "Moon" Reuben and Bassist Charles Brown.
In a generally positive review, "j.poet" wrote in Drum! Magazine that "Jones has a lifetime of performing a wide range of styles with some of the top names in the field, and brings all those elements together on Who's That Lady". [9]
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T-Neck Records was a record label founded by members of the R&B/soul group The Isley Brothers in 1964, which became notable for distributing the first nationally-released recordings of Jimi Hendrix, their guitarist, and which later became a successful label after the Isleys began releasing their own works after years of recording for other labels, scoring hits such as "It's Your Thing" (1969) and "That Lady" (1973).
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Ralph Randolph Johnson is an American singer, songwriter, musician and producer. Johnson is best known as a member and percussionist of the funk/soul/disco band Earth, Wind & Fire.
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Patrick Stanfield Jones is an American musician, producer, arranger, and singer-songwriter whose music is a mix of rock, jazz, folk, and blues.
Jana Herzen, born April 24, 1959 in San Francisco, is a singer-songwriter with folk, world, rock and jazz influences who founded Motéma Music, a Harlem-based record label focused on virtuosic jazz and world music. Prior to founding the label in 2003, she worked as a musician and as an art agent for Winston Smith, who designed the logo for Motéma. Herzen was instrumental in the publishing of Artcrime, Smith's 2nd volume of collected works on the Last Gasp publishing imprint.
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