Jones became a priest in 1923 and served as a curate in Kent before travelling to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) in 1929 with the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa.
[1] He was stationed at St Mark's School in Mapanza, a community in the Southern Province of present-day Zambia (called Rhodesia at the time).
In 1934 he introduced the technical term cross-rhythm:[2] Formulae of movement, phrases or motifs are combined in that way, that their starting place, main accents and, or beat reference points "cross", that is, that they do not coincide.
[4] He is also remembered for his controversial theories on scales and the music of the xylophone, which he claimed migrated from Southeast Asia to Africa.
Almost one hundred of Jones' acetate field recordings are part of the British Library Sound Archive (number C424).