Billy Jones, the co-founder and owner of Baby’s All Right and former booker at Pianos, Sin-é, and more New York venues, has died. According to a statement from the teams at Baby’s All Right, Funny Bar, and Nightclub 101, Jones died on Saturday morning, June 7, due to “a highly aggressive case of glioblastoma.” He was 45 years old.
Jones moved to New York in the early 2000s after falling in love with the city’s fast-paced environment and boisterous music scene. In the ensuing years, he turned his passionate fandom of bands and routine attendance at shows into a job as a booker at the now-defunct East Village venue Sin-é, as well as Elvis Guesthouse and the Dance. His curatorial talents left a permanent mark when he opened the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, bar and 280-capacity venue Baby’s All Right, in 2013, with Zachary Mexico. The spot helped revive the city’s indie scene, and often secured high-profile artists early in their career like SZA and and Billie Eilish for intimate gigs.
In addition to fostering a welcoming environment for artists and fans alike, Jones often rallied behind the importance of 18-plus shows at venues like Baby’s All Right. “You know, there will be 10 super smart kids who are fans and really want to be there. For us to exclude them based on age isn’t cool, we want to give them the opportunity to experience the music,” he told Brooklyn Magazine in 2016. “18+ shows are fun, the kids are really excited to be there and you can sense it. We do all age brunches. People will write to us ‘I really want to see this band, and my father I have CCed has agreed to chaperone me,’ and it’s awesome. Families like it, kids like it, it can be for everyone.”
Most recently, Jones and Tom Moore, in partnership with Knitting Factory Entertainment, opened the new venue Night Club 101 within New York’s historic Pyramid Club. Following a soft launch at the end of 2024, it opened properly earlier this year. It hosts live performances and DJ sets courtesy of indie-rock, jazz, electronic, and experimental artists, as well as art shows, themed dance nights, and community-focused events. Jones and Moore also opened, at the beginning of 2025, the jazz-bar-restaurant Funny Bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Numerous artists and music industry peers have posted tributes in Jones’ honor, including Cassie Ramone, La Femme’s Alix Brown, and Windser. “When Baby’s All Right opened, there was a certain synergy about it.. It answered the begging question of where to go after DIY favorite 285 Kent closed. The answer, according to Billy and Co., was to take the like-minded giddy, fever dream curation to a better space both for the band and audience,” Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo wrote on Instagram. “It looked great, it sounded great, it IS great, and CONTINUES to be. An innumerable amount of bands have cut their teeth in that space and gone on to do many a great musical deed. A lot of my favorite NYC memories are at Baby’s All Right, Elvis’s Guest House, and Pianos; courtesy of Billy. Rest in peace, bud.”
The teams at Baby’s All Right, Night Club 101, and Funny Bar shared an additional statement in tribute to Jones. “He was one of the best to ever do it. We are holding him in the light,” Jones’ colleagues wrote. “As his family, ourselves, our staff, and his friends all take time to mourn this profound loss, we ask that everyone just try and do what he did every day: share the love of music. There will be a memorial held in early July at Baby’s All Right—more details to come. Always remember: ‘It’s a feeling.’”