[2] Music was in the family: his mother, Lavinia (née Bevan), was a pianist and his aunt, Isawel Jones, played the organ in Tabernacle chapel in New Quay.

[4] Jones' sister, Barbara Cassini, also a talented pianist, counts the sea as a lasting influence on his music: "So many of his forebears were seafarers, Cape Horners...the holidays in New Quay, when we were in the water all the time or sailing across it, and later, of course, the navy and the Cunard liners..."[5] After leaving Llandovery College, Jones followed his father into banking but was called up by the Royal Navy for wartime service in the Far East.

[1] Jones joined the Harry Parry Sextet and Vic Lewis' Orchestra before plying his trade as ship's pianist on the luxury liner, the Queen Mary, sailing between New York City and Southampton.

After another visit to New Quay to see Isawel, he returned to America where he worked sporadically throughout 1983, including taking part in the Manassas Jazz Festival, when he played Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone.

"[12] He was honoured later that year at the National Eisteddfod in Lampeter by being posthumously admitted to the Gorsedd of Bards, cited as "one of the leading jazz pianists in the world".

The New York Times wrote in his obituary "A versatile, accomplished pianist, he was a master of the Harlem stride style of Fats Waller and a well-known interpreter of the piano music of Bix Beiderbecke".