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Hovering between a name and a nickname, "Duke" has indeed been used in conjunction with genuine jazz royalty. In combination with the all too common surname of Jones there lies only the faintest luster: a better-known Duke Jones is a session and jazz fusion soloist on trumpet and flügelhorn, but the name also appears in recording credits from the early '40s, perhaps even earlier. Back then a bassist named Duke Jones with more claim to being a genuine Texan than anyone in the Bush family was prowling the sagebrush hinterlands in the rhythm section of Sam Price & His Texas Bluesicians.

The bassist also performed and recorded with Louis Armstrong and Count Basie during the '40s. Jones made at least ten jazz records with different bands between 1940 and 1946. On some of these sides he is also credited with vocals. Players who can claim to have kept up with Jones when the Price was right include the fine drummer Wilbert Kirk and an especially solid guitarist, Brick Fleagle. Yet another Duke Jones who may not have recorded is a drummer who worked with bandleader Erskine Butterfield during the same period that the bassist was active. ~ Eugene Chadbourne