Biography
Born in Wales in 1947, Percy Jones developed a singular voice on the fretless electric bass through a nimble, fluid technique dense with harmonics. Largely self-taught, he spent several years on fretted instruments before making the switch, and his distinctive touch helped distinguish the British jazz-rock group Brand X from its fusion contemporaries on the albums Unorthodox Behaviour (1976), Morrocan Roll (1976), and Masques (1978). Although Brand X experienced repeated personnel shifts—Phil Collins served as its original drummer yet left prior to the sessions for Masques—Jones’s tone and phrasing remained steady anchors through the band’s intermittent recordings that continued into the 1990s. Brian Eno enlisted him for atmospheric bass contributions to the early experiments Another Green World (1975) and Before and After Science (1977), and Jones later appeared on the more purely ambient Music for Films (1978).
After relocating to New York City, Jones tracked his solo album Cape Catastrophe at an East Harlem studio across 1988 and 1989, layering parts on his five-string Wal V bass over live accompaniment generated by synthesizer, sequencer, drum machine, and digital delay. The record emerged in 1990, the same year the Percy Jones Ensemble issued Propeller Music, a project that also featured guitarist Jeff Llewelyn, violinist Shankar, vocalist Joe Sofia, keyboardist Anton Sanko, drummer Sterling Campbell, and drummer Mike Clark. Across his career Jones has played briefly with the jazz-rock incarnation of Soft Machine, fronted the fusion outfit Tunnels from the late 1990s into the new millennium, and performed or recorded with Steve Hackett, David Sylvian, Richard Barbieri, Roy Harper, and Suzanne Vega.
After relocating to New York City, Jones tracked his solo album Cape Catastrophe at an East Harlem studio across 1988 and 1989, layering parts on his five-string Wal V bass over live accompaniment generated by synthesizer, sequencer, drum machine, and digital delay. The record emerged in 1990, the same year the Percy Jones Ensemble issued Propeller Music, a project that also featured guitarist Jeff Llewelyn, violinist Shankar, vocalist Joe Sofia, keyboardist Anton Sanko, drummer Sterling Campbell, and drummer Mike Clark. Across his career Jones has played briefly with the jazz-rock incarnation of Soft Machine, fronted the fusion outfit Tunnels from the late 1990s into the new millennium, and performed or recorded with Steve Hackett, David Sylvian, Richard Barbieri, Roy Harper, and Suzanne Vega.
Albums
