Remembering Jack Jones: A Timeless Crooner
Jack Jones, the enchanting crooner who captivated concert-goers and audiences on stage, screen, and television for decades with his romantic ballads and smooth jazz melodies, passed away on Wednesday in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 86 years old. His wife, Eleonora Jones, revealed that the cause of his death, which occurred in a hospital, was leukemia.
While his popularity soared during the 1960s, Mr. Jones successfully reached a new generation of fans later in his career by singing the beloved theme for the hit television show “The Love Boat.” Yet, throughout his life, he seemed like a figure from an earlier era—one where tuxedos adorned those performing the timeless songs of Tin Pan Alley. He rekindled America’s romance with the works of legendary composers such as the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn, and Jimmy Van Heusen.
Mr. Jones earned two prestigious Grammy Awards and recorded a multitude of albums featuring American Songbook classics, many of which soared to the upper echelons of Billboard’s charts, thanks to his velvety vocal interpretations. His illustrious career saw him perform at iconic venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the White House, and the London Palladium. For over 60 years, he enchanted audiences in cabarets and nightclubs around the globe.
In 2010, at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan, Mr. Jones commemorated his 52nd year in show business with a two-hour retrospective of his musical journey. He opened and closed the performance with Paul Williams’s heartfelt song, “That’s What Friends Are For,” captivating a full house of devoted fans with the poignant lyrics:
- Friends are like warm clothes
- In the night air.
- Best when they’re old
- And we miss them the most when they’re gone.
“Those lyrics evoke the vanishing breed of the pop-jazz crooner, of which both Mr. Jones and Tony Bennett stand as the great survivors,” noted Stephen Holden in The New York Times. “Mr. Jones, now 72, attracts the same kind of sophisticated, well-dressed audiences that once flocked to the annual performances of his friend Mel Tormé at the now-defunct Michael’s Pub, who sadly passed away 11 years ago at the age of 73.”
In a remarkable moment of synergy, Mr. Jones was often seen alongside fellow vocalist Tony Bennett, as showcased in a memorable photograph from 1972, captured by Central Press, Hulton Archive/Getty Images.