All Night Long Shags
CD FROG DGF63
There are at least four things to mention regarding this trio recording under the name of the Chicago Hottentots. First Richard M. Jones, who, besides being, as he is here, an effective pianist, had his finger in many important recording activities in the 1920s in Chicago.
Then Albert Nicholas, who had a wonderful piercing Albert system clarinet sound here. He was brought to Chicago from New Orleans to join King Oliver, but left in 1926 to go on a tour to the Far East and Egypt. There he changed clarinet and started to play the Boehm system, developing another beautiful but different sound.
Also, the banjo player Johnny St. Cyr came to Chicago to join Oliver on recording sessions. Since he is seen posing in a famous Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers photo with a four-string banjo, he was thought to also play that type of instrument, but the fact is that he stuck to his six-string banjo tuned as a guitar, which comes well into its own here.
And as the fourth thing, the title of the song. It was renamed “Richard M. Jones Blues,” probably because the original had a too obvious sexual meaning. Lu Watters recorded it as such, and I used to play it with my band Scaniazz. (Good live recording from the Dresden Jazz Festival in 1985.)