Broadway Jones (performer)

Henry A. "Broadway" Jones (April 11, 1888 – November 14, 1948), was an American singer, musical theatre actor, drummer, band leader, comedian, and nightclub owner. As a vocalist he was known for his performances of jazz music and spirituals. He had a career as a singer, actor, and comedian in vaudeville, night clubs, and on Broadway during the first half of the twentieth century.

A native of Florida, Jones began his career as a jazz drummer and singer in Jacksonville where he was active as early as 1912. By 1915 he was working as a band leader in New York City. He became a well-known musical figure during the Harlem Renaissance where he operated a jazz nightclub in the 1920s. He was a popular performer in Palm Beach, Florida, where he sang regularly from 1915 into the late 1920s, including annual engagements at the Royal Poinciana Hotel. A baritone with a rich, large voice, the song "Ol' Man River" from Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern's Show Boat (1927) was originally created with him as the intended vocalist. He was offered the role of Joe in the original cast of the musical but declined the part.

Jones was a performing partner of Eubie Blake during World War I, and again during the late 1920s and early 1930s. The pair performed together in jazz clubs, hotels, theaters, and other venues, including performing in numerous musical revues in vaudeville and on tour. Together the pair created the vaudeville revue Shuffle Along Jr. (1928), a distilled version of Blake and Sissle's landmark 1921 musical Shuffle Along. They also performed in the Broadway musical Blackbirds of 1930.

Alone, Jones starred in James P. Johnson's short-lived Broadway musical Sugar Hill (1931). In the mid-1930s he performed at the Cotton Club, on Broadway, and on tour in the Cotton Club revues created by Cab Calloway. From 1938 to 1940 he was a member of Clarence Tisdale's Tisdale Trio, and afterward performed in his own group, the Broadway Jones Trio, whose membership also included vocalist Opal Cooper. At the very end of his career he worked in partnership with the jazz pianist Earres Prince. Having never retired, he died while traveling with Prince on tour in 1948 at the age of 60.