from the All Music biography by Eugene Chadbourne:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:gjfexq8jldse
By the mid-’20s he was featured on such in Frank Davis’ Louisiana Jazz Band and Dee Johnson’s Merrymakers. Long moved to Chicago in 1926, beginning a freelance period in which he was involved with a long list of bandleaders, Willie Hightower and Mack Swain among them. Chicago was one musical scene in which a heavier rhythm section sound dictated a switch from banjo to guitar.
Long’s recordings follow this pattern from the early ‘30s, continuing in the ensuing decade with better-known leaders such as Fletcher Henderson and Earl Hines. His company in the Hines outfit included some of the jazz genre’s most noted dignitaries, including Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. He was also involved with musicians who were more interested in rocking than swinging, playing in 1933 with Jesse Stone, who would later write the hit “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” Mastering these diverse influences and polishing his formal musical skills, Long by the end of the decade was assistant arranger and conductor for concert bands as well as swing big bands.
He had his own three-piece combo together in 1944, enjoying a long residency at the Three Deuces Cafe on 52nd Street in New York City. This was where he was approached by Bill Kenny, on the prowl for a guitarist to replace Charlie Fuqua in the Ink Spots. Actually, since it was the Ink Spots, the history is actually a bit more complicated...
This is not meant to hijack this thread, but for what it’s worth I can think of no bigger, America-hating leftist operating on fringes of popular music than Eugene Chadbourne.