He played with a New York City trio called Stone Tiger (featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and drummers Mike Clark and Dougie Bowne during different periods) in 1982/83 Jones was also the driving force behind Tunnels, an improvisation collective which released four albums including Progressivity and Live From The Knitting Factory.

[5] Jones was also a member of the jazz fusion group Soft Machine, the poetry rock group The Liverpool Scene (featuring poet Adrian Henri), and has contributed to recordings by Kate Bush, David Sylvian, Brian Eno,[4] Steve Hackett, Paranoise, Suzanne Vega, Richard Barbieri and Fovea Hex, amongst others.

[6] Jones's playing style incorporates an unconventional three-finger right hand technique to pluck the strings (like Les Claypool and, before him, John Entwistle), in contrast to most bassists using two fingers.

The uniqueness of his technique and his outsider melodic sensibilities, particularly with Brand X and on his contributions to Brian Eno's Another Green World and Before and After Science LPs of the 1970s, cast a long shadow.

His other designs included an envelope-controlled Voltage Controlled Filter (VCF), which can be heard on the track "Noddy Goes to Sweden" on Brand X's 1980 album Do They Hurt?, as well as an analog drum machine, which featured preset rhythms in various odd time signatures such as 15/16.