Overview
- Jones’s family and Justin Time Records confirmed late Wednesday that the Montreal-born pianist died at age 91 after a long illness and asked for privacy as they grieve.
- He rose from Little Burgundy in Montreal, began piano at age five, and built a seven-decade career that moved from classical training to pop arranging and then to international jazz performance.
- Jones spent about 16 years as an arranger and conductor after moving to Puerto Rico in 1964, returned to Montreal in 1980 to focus on jazz, and became widely known from the mid-1980s onward.
- He earned major national honours including the Order of Canada, induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, multiple Junos and the Oscar Peterson Award.
- Colleagues remember him as a humble mentor who supported younger Canadian musicians such as Diana Krall, and he is survived by his son Richard with no public funeral plans announced yet.