This story is part of Loved and Lost, a statewide media collaboration working to celebrate the life of every New Jersey resident who died of COVID-19. To learn more and submit a loved one's name to be profiled, visit lovedandlostnj.com.

Dawn Felice Jones remembers when her fiancé started getting sick in March, how he still wanted to play his beloved trumpet.

“He picked up his horn and he tried to play it. And he produced something, but it wasn’t his tone. I remember him putting it back down,” Jones recalled. “Then, the next day came, he picked it up again, and this time he produced his tone. And I remember him feeling good about that.”

The love of her life was virtuoso jazz trumpeter Wallace Roney. The next day, Roney left his Clifton home and went into the ambulance that took him to St. Joseph’s University Medical Center in Paterson. He died there on March 31 at age 59.

He had a lifelong love for the horn that started in his native Philadelphia where — at the age of 12 — he became the youngest member of The Philadelphia Brass quintet.

After Roney's family moved to Washington, D.C., he attended the city’s prestigious Duke Ellington School of the Arts high school. That’s where Jones, a budding vocalist, first crossed paths with him.

“Wallace used to have that great big old trumpet case and you would see him walking down the hall carrying that," Jones said. "He would get there early, and I would get to school early, and he would be in one of the rooms practicing. Wallace was very focused, very motivated. He was a force to be reckoned with.”

They would go their separate ways, to reunite many years later.

Roney went on to play with musical legends like his idol Miles Davis before leading his own groups on numerous stages and picking up a Grammy award along the way.

One with the universe:Wallace Roney celebrates Wayne Shorter’s ‘Universe’

Loved and Lost:Portraits of our family, friends and neighbors taken by coronavirus

“Our paths crossed again," Jones recalled, "and we started talking, and we didn’t stop until he left in that ambulance.”

Ricardo Kaulessar is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com Twitter: @ricardokaul