A jazz group that started recording as early as 1917 is bound to have racked up a few historical firsts. Although he was hardly a permanent member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the British pianist Billy Jones shares in the group's legacy of groundbreaking which most importantly boasts having made the first recording of music considered to be jazz. Jones is, in turn, the first European jazzman to work with an American group. Not to be confused with the somewhat later vocalist who recorded Yes, We Have No Bananas, this Jones was a danceband guy who only happened to play jazz because a fellow pianist had shown him how. This mentor has never been identified in more detail than as "a colored chap," who was working as a pianist in London nightclubs prior to the outbreak of the first World War.

A deadly case of the flu had removed pianist Henry Ragas from the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's lineup right before the start of a European tour. This circumstance was what led to Jones' filling the piano bench on a tour that included a command performance for King George V. It was a good thing that Jones had spent a few years practicing the syncopated piano styles he had picked up, but there was still apparently something of an amusing contrast between the schooled British musician and the gang of New Orleans players, all of whom played by ear. New repertoire was apparently put together by having Jones play through sheet music, not a note of which the members of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band could comprehend. They would listen carefully to the pianist, then master the music by ear after only one, sometimes two, repeats. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi