Melrose, Frankdyn Taft)

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Melrose, Frankdyn Taft)

Melrose, Frankdyn Taft), jazz pianist, leader; b. Sumner, Ill., Nov. 26, 1907; d. near Hammond, Ind., Sept. 1, 1941. His two brothers, Walter and Lester, were music publishers and talent scouts for recording companies. Frank began on violin, but later specialized on piano. He worked with various leaders in and around Chicago in the late 1920s. During this period, he recorded under the pseudonym “Kansas City Frank,” and also did sessions with the Dodds Brothers, Jimmy Bertrand, and other Chicago-based musicians. He worked in N.Y., Kansas City, St. Louis, and Detroit; played with Bud Jacobson at the Chicago World’s Fair (1933). He left full-time music for several years, but returned to teaching and gigs in the late 1930s, then had a residency at Paddock and Derby Clubs in Calumet City until March 1940. This was followed by a brief spell with Pete Daily in Chicago. Melrose then worked as a machinist in a pressed-steel factory, continued to do club work, including a spell with Joe Sheets in the Cedar Lake district. After a Labor Day weekend visit to Chicago in 1941, his mutilated body was found near Hammond, Ind.

Discography

Kansas City Frank Melrose (1956).

—John Chilton, Who’s Who of Jazz/Lewis Porter