Montreal has lost a jazz giant. Make that the world. A gentle jazz giant at that.

Oliver Jones died Wednesday night at 91 after a lengthy illness. There were few more gifted and there were few more humble than Jones. He made magic on the piano with such ease and alacrity, and yet he would forever protest he was not in the same keyboard orbit as his mentor, fellow Little Burgundy-born buddy Oscar Peterson.

Let’s just say they were both among the grandest masters at their craft.

But there was something else with Jones: He was always there, be it to offer his mentoring services to up-and-coming musicians or to tickle the ivories at countless charitable causes or to spearhead his own fundraisers for youth groups through his annual golf tournament. Indeed, if Jones had any regrets at all, it wasn’t about losing his touch on the keyboards — which he never really did, even into his 90th year. No, it was he felt he had his lost his touch on the golf course and wasn’t able to replicate his early feats — like when he was able to nearly score his age in his 80s.

But put him near a piano, and he just couldn’t resist. In a 2022 interview at Christ Church Cathedral, where Jones was conscripted to talk about the Montreal jazz fest, he told me — as he often did when we talked — his playing days were well behind him: “I’m about to turn 88. Tough to play ‘the 88′ at 88.”

Evidently not. In what was supposed to be a simple photo op at the piano turned into a brief, but mesmerizing concert. Jones was transfixed, returning to his form of yesteryear. It was no accident the tune he had so deftly tickled on the ivories was Oscar Peterson’s Hymn to Freedom.

Jones recalled then, as he had done........

© Montreal Gazette