Peter Jones
Peter Jones is a journalist and biographer with a focus on music.
Twitter: @beatnikjazz
Biography
Peter Jones is a journalist and biographer with a focus on music.
As well as Nightfly (see below), he has written pioneering biographies of the jazz singers Jon Hendriks and Mark Murphy, and is currently at work on a new book about Ronnie Scott’s Club. His journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The New World, Jazzwise magazine and the website All About Jazz.
As a jazz singer, bass player and composer he has recorded six albums, three of them with the band Zoophyte. His recordings have been broadcast on Jazz FM and Worldwide FM and he has performed at jazz festivals and venues across the Uk, including Ronnie Scott’s, as well as in Switzerland, Ireland, Japan and the USA.
For the last six years he has programmed the jazz stage at the annual High Tide music festival in London.
Peter’s books THIS IS HIP: THE LIFE OF MARK MURPHY (Equinox Publishing, 2018) and THIS IS BOP: JON HENDRICKS AND THE ART OF VOCAL JAZZ (Equinox 2020) have been widely praised, and both won the ARSC Award for Excellence in Recorded Sound Research.
His most recent book, NIGHTFLY, is a major biography of Donald Fagen, published in 2022 by Chicago Review Press.
Donald Fagen will forever be associated with Steely Dan, the band he formed with Walter Becker and four other musicians in 1972. The smooth, radio-friendly veneer of the duo’s songs made Steely Dan internationally popular and famous in the 1970s, but the polish glossed over the underlying layers of anger, disappointment, sleaze, and often downright weirdness lurking just beneath the surface. The elliptical lyrics were—and continue to be—an endless source of fascination. What kind of person was capable of writing such songs?
Fagen has always kept his true self hidden behind walls of irony, confounding most journalistic enquiries with a mixture of obscurity and sarcasm. Nightfly cracks open the door to reveal the life behind the lyrics and traces Fagen’s story from early family life in suburban New Jersey, to his first encounter with Walter Becker at Bard College, their long struggle for recognition as songwriters, and the formation of Steely Dan. The band’s break-up in 1981, re-formation in 1993, and Fagen’s parallel solo career are covered in detail. The book explains the public’s continuing fascination with Fagen’s music, both in collaboration with Becker and as a solo artist.
Reviews
"NIGHTFLY IS A MUST-READ FOR EVERY STEELY DAN FAN. Peter Jones covers all aspects of Donald Fagen’s career, both with Steely Dan and as a solo artist. I am amazed as to the level of detail in the descriptions of the recording sessions and the analyses of the lyrics of the songs." Jay Graydon, guitarist on Steely Dan’s Aja.
"PETER JONES HAS DONE AN IMPECCABLE JOB ILLUMINATING ONE OF MUSIC’S MOST MERCURIAL AND MYSTERIOUS FIGURES. Exhaustive research, rich storytelling, and keen observations make this a must-read, not just for Fagen fans and Steely Dan devotees but any music fans that relish compelling inside stories from the vinyl era. A comprehensive, critical biography that will also help you listen to classic albums like Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied, Aja, and others with fresh new ears." Chris Epting, author of James Dean Died Here.
"An informative and engaging read." Classic Rock
"Thorough and readable… an exemplary examination of Fagen’s music and life." Library Journal
"Fagen fans will find this detailed account a worthy complement to the singer’s own memoir, Eminent Hipsters." Publishers Weekly
"An insightful, detailed, heavily researched and wonderfully well-written tome. [Jones] adds much for fans of the man, the Dan and the body of work… More importantly, Jones gets as close as possible to the inner workings and thoughts of the inscrutable subject." Houston Press
Books
