Jonah Jones, who died in New York on April 29th aged 90, was one of the great swing trumpeters, and gained new success long after the heyday of the style with a formula he called "muted jazz".
It brought him engagements, a recording contract and financial security.
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he enlisted in a Sunday school music group when he was 11. He wanted to play the trombone, but was assigned the alto horn; he was nicknamed "Jonah" after a music instructor stuttered over his surname.
Within a couple of years, he had progressed to trumpet, and fallen under the spell of Louis Armstrong. He took local danceband jobs while still at school, but his first professional engagement was playing moonlight excursions on the Ohio river.
In 1928, he joined the trumpet section of Horace Henderson's band.
Moves from band to band led to Buffalo, New York, where he linked up with Jimmie Lunceford's orchestra. He later joined the manic jazz violinist Hezekiah "Stuff" Smith, beginning an association which lasted until 1940, with occasional other engagements when Smith's combo was without a job.
One was with pianist Lil Armstrong, who featured Jonah Jones as "Louis Armstrong II", and had him play her former husband's specialities.
After Smith found a spot at the Harlem Grill in Buffalo, Jonah Jones rejoined, staying on to play at the Onyx Club on New York's 52nd Street.
Smith's group specialised in extended improvisations - one extemporisation lasted for an hour. He played hard, and expected his men to live hard, too, fuelled by copious quantities of whisky and cannabis.
On one occasion Jonah Jones and drummer Cozy Cole decided to go teetotal after spending several weeks staying up all night, drinking 100 per cent-proof spirits and smoking marijuana. However Smith detected a change in their playing and threatened to fine them unless they got high in the interval so that they could match his own woozy perception of the world.
When a doctor gave Jonah Jones a year to live unless he changed his ways, he moved on to work briefly with Benny Carter and Fletcher Henderson.
He also appeared on many freelance recordings, where his full tone and solo command helped build a solid reputation.
He joined Cab Calloway's orchestra in 1941, displacing the band's existing soloist, the young Dizzy Gillespie.
Calloway was so pleased to sign him that he recorded an original composition, Jonah Joins The Cab.
Jonah Jones participated in the notorious "spitball" incident, when he flicked a soggy ball of paper at the band's drummer. Gillespie was falsely accused, a fight ensued, a knife was pulled, Calloway was cut, and Gillespie hurriedly quit the band. Jonah Jones stayed mute.
Despite his orchestra's considerable success, Calloway eventually reduced it to a sextet, finally disbanding in 1952.
After a stint in pianist Joe Bushkin's quartet, and a good summer in Europe in 1954, which saw Jonah Jones teamed on record and holding his own with the fiery soprano sax virtuoso Sidney Bechet, he returned to New York facing a shaky future.
A chance encounter with agent Sam Berg led him to form a quartet which won a five-year contract at the Embers Club.
Recordings with Capitol followed, his first album - with the hit song On The Street Where You Live - selling a million copies and setting a pattern which endured for the remainder of his playing career.
Many more albums were made. With hotels and clubs vying for his services, the quartet later toured Europe, Australia and the Far East.
Formulaic, perhaps, the concept of "muted jazz" - with Jonah Jones using a variety of mutes and presenting familiar melodies in swinging fashion, often over a shuffle-beat - brought him fame and fortune and, in his view, introduced many people to jazz.
He retired from playing in the 1980s but maintained an active interest in music. He continued to attend jazz functions in and around New York and loved to tell stories of his career on the road.
Jonah Jones was an outstanding instrumentalist, whose power and attack made every solo a joy. Staying true to the inspiration of Louis Armstrong to the end, he said: "Louis could do no wrong. . . That guy was like a god to me. He had everything - tone, technique, feeling."
So, in the views of many jazz fans, had he.
He is survived by a daughter and two sons.
Robert Elliot (Jonah) Jones: born 1909; died April, 2000