Music
Hank Jones
1918–2010 · jazz pianist, bandleader, composer
Pontiac-raised pianist, eldest of the Jones brothers with Thad and Elvin, who accompanied Ella Fitzgerald, backed Marilyn Monroe's "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" and appeared on about a thousand recordings.
- Born
Vicksburg, Mississippi- Died
The Bronx, New York City
aged 91- Birth name
- Henry Jones Jr.
- Detroit years
- 1920s–1944 (Pontiac)
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Henry Jones was born in Mississippi and grew up in Pontiac, where his father, a Baptist deacon and lumber inspector, bought a three-story brick house for a family of ten children. Music filled the home: his mother sang, his sisters studied piano, and his younger brothers Thad and Elvin became a trumpet star and one of the great jazz drummers. Hank took classical lessons from Pauline McCann, loved Bach, Chopin and Debussy, and against his father's disapproval absorbed Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson and above all Art Tatum. By thirteen he was playing jobs around Michigan and Ohio, and he worked in territory bands in Grand Rapids and Lansing until 1944, when saxophonist Lucky Thompson brought him to New York. There he mastered bebop, toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic, accompanied Ella Fitzgerald from 1948 to 1953 and recorded with Charlie Parker. He spent 1959–1975 as a CBS staff pianist and remained active into his nineties.
Highlights
- Grew up in Pontiac with brothers Thad and Elvin Jones
- Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist, 1948–1953
- Played for Marilyn Monroe's "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" (1962)
- NEA Jazz Master (1989) and National Medal of Arts (2008)
- Appeared on an estimated thousand recordings, including Somethin' Else