James Sidney Jones (17 June 1861 – 29 January 1946), usually credited asSidney Jones, was an English conductor and composer, who was most famous for composing the musical scores for a series ofmusical comedy hits in the lateVictorian andEdwardian periods. Jones's most famous musical wasThe Geisha, but several of his pieces were among the most popular shows of the era, enjoying long runs, international tours and revivals.
In 1892, after nine years of conducting touring companies of British operettas forAlfred Cellier andGeorge Edwardes, Edwardes engaged Jones to conduct several operettas and musical comedies in London. Jones had begun composing incidental music and supplemental songs for some of the shows he conducted and even wrote scores of his own in 1889 and 1892. In 1893, one of his songs, "Linger Longer, Loo", composed for the 1892burlesqueDon Juan at the Gaiety Theatre, became popular throughout the English-speaking world.
Jones's first hit show wasA Gaiety Girl (1893), one of the first major successes of theEdwardian musical comedy genre. A series of Jones hits followed:An Artist's Model (1894),The Geisha (1896),A Greek Slave (1898) andSan Toy (1899). After this, Jones had less frequent and intense successes, but his more popular shows includedMy Lady Molly (1902),See See (1906),King of Cadonia (1908),The Girl from Utah (1913) andThe Happy Day (1916).
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Jones was born inIslington, London. His father, James Sidney Jones, Sr. (1837–1914) originally ofSuffolk, was a military bandmaster. His mother was Ann Jones, née Eycott. As a child, Jones moved frequently as his father was transferred to new military stations in England and Ireland. The young Jones learned to play a variety of instruments in the band. InDublin, he studied with Sir Robert Stewart (1825–1894) ofTrinity College. The family later moved toLeeds, where his father became conductor of the Leeds Rifles, was the musical director of theLeeds Grand Theatre and later conducted a band and the Spa Orchestra atHarrogate.[1] Jones was the eldest son and second of six children. His youngest brother, Guy Sidney Jones (1875–1959), also became a conductor and composer whose musical scores includedThe Gay Gordons (1907).[2]
In 1885, Jones married Kate Linley, an actress, and the couple produced five children.[3]
Jones gained his first professional experience playing theclarinet in his father's band and orchestra. He also gave piano lessons. In 1882, he was hired as a conductor for tours of operettas and other musical theatre pieces, such asRobert Planquette'sLes Cloches de Corneville[2] and a popular American musical show,Fun on the Bristol. He next toured with the Vokes family and also composedincidental music and songs for their farcical entertainment.In Camp.[4] In 1886, actress/producerKate Santley engaged Jones as musical director for the tour of her musicalVetah.[3]
Jones then worked forHenry Leslie for nearly four years as conductor of tours ofAlfred Cellier'scomic opera hitDorothy (starring Lucy Carr Shaw, sister toGeorge Bernard Shaw),Doris andThe Red Hussar. He was then music director for a tour of theGaiety Theatre pieceLittle Jack Sheppard under the management of comedian J. J. Dallas.[4] After that,George Edwardes hired him as musical director for the Gaiety Theatre's 1891 tour of America and Australia, conducting the burlesquesRuy Blas and the Blasé Roué andCinder-Ellen Up-too-Late. He briefly returned to conducting in the British provinces, but in 1892, after nine years of touring, Edwardes hired Jones to conduct the musicalIn Town at thePrince of Wales Theatre on London'sWest End. He next was musical director for another West End musical,Morocco Bound (1893), and for the London production ofThe Gay Parisienne (1896).[3]
At the same time as these conducting engagements, Jones had begun composing incidental music and songs as needed for the shows he conducted. In 1889, he wrote the musical score for the pantomimeAladdin II, which played at Leeds. When Edwardes's touring company producedCinder Ellen in Australia, Jones wrote a dance number that was added toMeyer Lutz's score. Jones also composed an operetta,Our Family Legend (1892), with a libretto by Reginald Stockton, which was produced atBrighton.[3] In 1893, one of his songs, "Linger Longer, Loo" was added to Lutz's 1892 burlesqueDon Juan at the Gaiety Theatre.[5] The song became popular throughout the English-speaking world and inspired a drawing byToulouse-Lautrec ofYvette Guilbert singing it.[2]
In 1893, forA Gaiety Girl, with a libretto byOwen Hall, Edwardes gave Jones the opportunity to write the music, and the result was a hit show that enjoyed a long run and toured internationally, setting the trend for a new genre of popular musical theatre that came to be known asEdwardian musical comedy.[4] The ballad "Sunshine above" from the show was popular parlour song. Jones's style was similar in technique to the music ofArthur Sullivan and Cellier, which Jones had conducted for so long, but it was lighter and breezier, appealing to the popular tastes of the time.[2]
Jones soon became house composer and music director for George Edwardes's newDaly's Theatre. AfterA Gaiety Girl, Jones again collaborated with Hall and lyricistHarry Greenbank to produce another success,An Artist's Model (1894), which ran for fifteen months. This was followed by three of the most successful musical comedies of the 1890s:The Geisha (1896),A Greek Slave (1898), andSan Toy (1899). Jones's musical plays were "written in a more musically substantial style than the featherweight entertainment given at the Gaiety. Their librettos sported a solid and serious romantic backbone (confided to thebaritone heroHayden Coffin and thesopranoMarie Tempest) alongside their comic and soubrette elements, and the scores which Jones provided included, alongside the lighter material, numbers sentimental and dramatic, as well as some impressive and vocally demanding concerted ensembles and finales."[3]
Jones song fromThe Geisha, "The Amorous Goldfish" became an oft-sung hit, as did several of his other songs for these shows.The Geisha andSan Toy took advantage of the fad for oriental settings in musical theatre that had reached a peak inGilbert and Sullivan'sThe Mikado in 1885.[2] These two musicals were frequently revived, recorded and widely toured in Europe as well as throughout the English-speaking world. The former became the most frequently-performed English-language work of musical theatre in Europe for many decades.[5][6] The piece figures prominently inAnton Chekhov's popular short story,The Lady with the Dog, and it was adapted as a Russian film in 1959 that featured its music, including "The Amorous Goldfish".[2]
Other musicals followed, but Jones's only real successes during this period wereMy Lady Molly (produced by Jones) in 1902 andKing of Cadonia in 1908 (produced byFrank Curzon), althoughSee-See (with a book byCharles Brookfield and lyrics byAdrian Ross) did reasonably well in 1906 at thePrince of Wales Theatre, starringDenise Orme in the title role.[7] As musical director at theEmpire Theatre, Jones wrote the ballets,The Bugle Call (1905) andCinderella (1906), which was danced at Christmas-time.[2][8] Later, back at the light-heartedGaiety Theatre, withThe Girl from Utah in 1913, and at Daly's Theatre, withThe Happy Day in 1916, Jones achieved two last successes. However, Jones, like his sometime collaboratorLionel Monckton, fell victim to changing musical fashions around the time ofWorld War I, such as syncopated dance rhythms likeragtime, and retired from composition.[3]
Jones died at his home atKew, Surrey, at the age of 84.[5]
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