Back in late 1974, John Shoup, a television producer for PBS and later The Discovery Channel who has also managed and produced many artists, flew out to Las Vegas to meet with musician/singer Louis Prima at Prima’s golf course. Shoup wanted Prima’s permission to take over his lease at the Monteleone Hotel’s rooftop nightclub in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Two months later, on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1974, Shoup opened “Dukes’ Place” atop the Monteleone. It featured the home of the newest ensemble of The DUKES of Dixieland, with Connie Jones as leader.

In the summer of 1975, the DUKES performed outdoors with the Grant Park Pops Orchestra in Chicago. Henry Brandon (who wrote the music for the Oscar Mayer commercial, “Oh I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Wiener”), conducted the orchestra and wrote several symphony charts for the DUKES to perform. That was the beginning of 30 years of performing with symphonies like the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Chicago, Indianapolis, Maryland, Florida, Grand Rapids, and Syracuse Orchestras, as well as with Skitch Henderson and The New York Pops. Erich Kunzel, Doc Severinsen, and Peter Nero have also conducted the DUKES with their respective orchestras.

In the summer of 1976 they traveled throughout France for the U.S. Bicentennial Celebrations. In later years, they have worked for Aramco in Saudi Arabia and have opened performing arts centers in Turkey, Ecuador, Peru, and Japan.

The DUKES have performed from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, to Chautauqua in New York, Ravinia in Chicago, and Wolf Trap in Virginia.

From hundreds of colleges to music and jazz festivals around the world, the DUKES have played them all. They played the first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and have performed there every year since then. They traveled to the Espoo Jazz Festival in Helsinki, Finland, and to the JVC Jazz Festival in New York City.

In 1984, after three years of construction, the DUKES opened their jazz club at 309 Bourbon Street called “Lulu White’s Mahogany Hall.” They hosted Super Bowl parties, concerts with Woody Herman, and shot several television shows, including Toots Thielemans, Irma Thomas, and A Salute to Jelly Roll Morton. By 1991, their lease was up and they accepted an offer to make their home base aboard the Steamboat Natchez. They have been performing nightly for the dinner cruises on the Natchez ever since.

In the summer of 2005 the DUKES were winding up recording two CDs — one for Christmas and one for Mardi Gras 2006. On August 29, 2005, two days after the tapes for the Christmas CD were sent off to Los Angeles for mastering, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. The Steamboat sailed up to Baton Rouge to get out of harm’s way. The DUKES were scattered from Seattle to Virginia to Florida. Shoup was the only one who sat the storm out in downtown New Orleans.

In the two weeks following the hurricane, Shoup was able to book the DUKES into the Lady Luck Casino in Las Vegas through the end of October. Then the DUKES flew to Cincinnati to join the Natchez for a four-week fundraising tour (Cincinnati–Louisville–Evansville– Paducah–Memphis–Greenville–Natchez–Baton Rouge–New Orleans) for the Bush-Clinton Katrina Foundation. We closed out 2005 with the Lancaster Symphony on New Year’s Eve.

As we enter 2006, rebuilding New Orleans and helping bring tourists back with our Mardi Gras CD, we look back and say, it’s been one heck of a ride.

The DUKES still travel to Japan to perform at the Blue Note clubs and play approximately 30 concerts a year with symphonies and festivals around the world.

The DUKES have not been affiliated with the Assunto family since 1974.