Isham Russell "Rusty" Jones II (April 13, 1942 – December 9, 2015) was an American jazz drummer.

Early life

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 The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

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 Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

area in 1967.

Playing career

Jones appeared with Chicago singer Judy Roberts from 1968–72, soon after becoming a member of George Shearing's trio from 1972-78. 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 worked quite a bit with Adam Makowicz, Larry Novak, Patricia Barber, Frank D'Rone, Art Hodes, Ira Sullivan, J.R. Monterose, and Stéphane Grappelli. Jones appeared quite regularly around the Chicago area with musicians from the young jazz scene in Chicago. He died in Chicago on December 9, 2015.

Notable family members

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. His mother was working at the Bismark Hotel in 1936 when the couple married. Other musicians in Jones' family were his grandfather, a trombonist/bandleader named Frank Jones, who worked in the Saginaw and Detroit area and his maternal uncle, Dean Herrick, an early artist on the

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...

. The best known of these family musicians was Jones' great uncle, songwriter and band leader Isham Jones.

References

External links

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All About Jazz

Cimrecords.com

Modern Drummer article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Rusty 1942 births 2015 deaths American jazz drummers Cool jazz drummers Jazz musicians from Chicago American session musicians Musicians from Cedar Rapids, Iowa American male drummers Drummers from Iowa Drummers from Chicago