Wikipedia:
Isham Jones (born January 31, 1894 in Coalton, Ohio; † October 19, 1956 in Hollywood, Florida) was an American big band leader, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter-composer of dance music in the 1920s and 1930s.
Jones grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, where as a boy he led mules in coal mines, playing violin to boot, and led his first band at age 18. He also played saxophone (from about 1918) and piano. From 1915 to 1924, he was in Chicago, where, after military service in 1918, he played in a dance band that he soon took over. In Chicago he played at the Rainbow Gardens and the Sherman Hotel College Inn (1922-1925), among other venues. After an England tour in 1924, he settled in New York, where he played in a Ziegfeld show as early as 1921. Isham had one of the most popular dance bands in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. He recorded for Brunswick during this period (1920-1932), and from 1932 for RCA Victor; from 1934 he was among the first artists to record for the newly formed Decca label. Among the singers in the bands were violinist Eddie Stone, Frank Sylvano, Joe Martin and the young Bing Crosby. From his band emerged, among others, Joe Bishop, pianist Roy Bargy, cornetist Louis Panico, Woody Herman (who took over the band Isham Jones Juniors in 1936, when Jones retired to compose more) and Benny Goodman (who, however, was in the band for a very short time). Bix Beiderbecke played in the orchestra several times as a student.
Isham Jones wrote over a hundred compositions, many of which are now standards, such as "Spain" (1923), "On the Alamo," "I'll See You In My Dreams" (1924), "It Had to Be You" (1925), "Swingin' Down the Lane," "The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else," and "There Is No Greater Love" (1936). After a last engagement in Memphis (Tennessee), he had to take a short break for health reasons; a few months later he appeared in New York with a new band, with whom he performed at the Lincoln Hotel. During this period there was musical competition with Woody Herman, who played with former Jones musicians in New York. He was no longer in the music business in the 1940s and 1950s, but managed a store in Colorado before moving to Florida in 1955, where he died of cancer a year later.
A song he wrote with lyricist Ole Olsen in 1917 is one of the first with the word jazz in the title (That's Jaz!). Jones himself later referred to his music as "American Dance Music" (rather than jazz).
Note: Translated from the Geerman version of Wikipedia into English.
