Vince Jones

(b. 1954) is an Australian jazz artist. He is a singer, song writer, and trumpet player. His music includes both original music and new contemporary versions of jazz standards. His themes are "inequity, injustice, peace and anti-greed". He attributes his love of jazz to hearing a recording of Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain when he was about 14. He taught himself to play the trumpet. Vince was born in Glasgow, Scotland and his family moved to Wollongong, Australia when he was 11 years old. He began his career as a bebop trumpet player. In the mid-1980s an attempt was made on his life. The light aircraft at his farm in east Gippsland was sabotaged, and forensic tests revealed that steel wool had been put into the plane's oil tank. He had a high profile in the area at the time as a protester against logging of forests. He has sold more than 200,000 albums world-wide. Currently he is living on the south coast of New South Wales, on the edge of the Royal National Park. Australia's leading jazz vocalist, Vince Jones, is also a remarkable interpreter and composer of songs in a contemporary jazz style - a style that appeals equally to listeners and his musical peers. As a vocalist he resists showing off technique to the detriment of feel - he's confident in his musical literacy and sings like there's nothing to prove. It's a refreshing approach that gives us, the audience, the chance to be really moved. Vince Jones also plays trumpet and over the years his style has developed a distinctive reserve and subtlety - he plays a little less and draws a good deal more from it than he did in earlier days. A brief, thoughtful solo from Vince is worth a hundred notes played with less discretion.