Jack Jones, a Grammy Award-winning baritone who merged compassionate sincerity with powerful vocal technique on pop successes in the 1960s and the disco-jazzy theme song of the TV series “The Love Boat,” died on October 23 at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 86. Eleonora, his wife, revealed that the cause was complications from leukemia, a bone marrow cancer.
Mr. Jones, the son of movie legends Allan Jones and Irene Hervey, grew raised in Hollywood’s elite circles. Nancy Sinatra was one of his closest high school friends, and he recalls being in amazement while her father performed at a school assembly.
Mr. Jones’ father was a notable performer in his own right, a wavy-haired leading man who showcased his operatic singing voice in films starring the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and other comedy teams from the 1930s and 1940s.
Mr. Jones received early voice lessons from an operatic instructor at the request of his father, despite the fact that his personal musical tastes were more influenced by big-band jazz and Hit Parade tunes from his childhood. The resulting hybrid style, as he rose to prominence in the early 1960s, was one of velvety romantic ardour, virile passion, and dazzling swing, earning him accolades from renowned music reviewers.
Will Friedwald, one of his most fervent supporters among succeeding generations of music writers, once said that “for all of Jones’s polish, there’s never an instant when he comes off as merely slick.”
Mr. Jones’ musical personality was multifaceted, ranging from show-tune belter to gritty bluesman, swinging crooner to pensive romantic.
