Biography
By the middle of the 1920s Edison had long dropped its founder’s resistance to syncopated music, so its roster featured sessions by Mal Hallett, Joe Herlihy, B.A. Rolfe, Frank Winegar, the Piccadilly Players, Oreste & His Queensland Orchestra, and the Georgia Melodians, a compact Southern ensemble that preserved roughly twenty-seven performances. In contrast to ensembles such as the California Ramblers and the Original Memphis Five, this unit actually originated in the region named on its label. Saxophonist Clarence Hill Hutchins and trumpeter Ernie Intelhouse assembled the group in Savannah early in 1923; clarinetist Merritt Kenworthy joined at Lynchburg, Virginia, that spring. The musicians spent the summer working ballrooms and coastal resorts in North Carolina, headed north in the fall to entertain college crowds, and reached New York for their first engagement in February 1924.
Over the band’s three-year run its personnel included trumpeter Mickey Bloom, cornetist Red Nichols, trombonists George Troupe, Herb Winfield, Charlie Butterfield, Al Philburn, and Abe Lincoln, an unnamed tuba player, banjoist Elmer “Merry” Morris, pianist Oscar Young—who had arrived in New York from Ohio in 1911 alongside vaudevillian Ted Lewis—and drummer Carl Gerrold. Although Hutchins and Intelhouse directed the music, violinist Charles Boulanger served as the nominal front man; he later managed Jack Teagarden’s orchestra in the early 1940s. While holding a steady job at the Cinderella Ballroom on 48th and Broadway, the Melodians began recording for Edison at the urging of agent Verdi Fuller. Within months they also appeared under the broader umbrella of bandleader Paul Specht.
In September 1924 they opened at the Strand Roof Garden; their final public performance under the Georgia Melodians name took place at a New Year’s event at the Hotel Alamac on Broadway and West 71st Street. As a studio unit they continued to record for Edison until April 1926. Jazz historian Joe Moore notes that after December 1925 the Melodians incorporated players from the recently disbanded W.C. Polla orchestra and, under Boulanger and bassist Rex Gavitte, performed as the Mountaineers at the Rosemont in Brooklyn. Edison ceased record production entirely in 1929, and the Georgia Melodians remained largely overlooked for seven decades until Timeless Historical reissued twenty of their titles in 1996.
Over the band’s three-year run its personnel included trumpeter Mickey Bloom, cornetist Red Nichols, trombonists George Troupe, Herb Winfield, Charlie Butterfield, Al Philburn, and Abe Lincoln, an unnamed tuba player, banjoist Elmer “Merry” Morris, pianist Oscar Young—who had arrived in New York from Ohio in 1911 alongside vaudevillian Ted Lewis—and drummer Carl Gerrold. Although Hutchins and Intelhouse directed the music, violinist Charles Boulanger served as the nominal front man; he later managed Jack Teagarden’s orchestra in the early 1940s. While holding a steady job at the Cinderella Ballroom on 48th and Broadway, the Melodians began recording for Edison at the urging of agent Verdi Fuller. Within months they also appeared under the broader umbrella of bandleader Paul Specht.
In September 1924 they opened at the Strand Roof Garden; their final public performance under the Georgia Melodians name took place at a New Year’s event at the Hotel Alamac on Broadway and West 71st Street. As a studio unit they continued to record for Edison until April 1926. Jazz historian Joe Moore notes that after December 1925 the Melodians incorporated players from the recently disbanded W.C. Polla orchestra and, under Boulanger and bassist Rex Gavitte, performed as the Mountaineers at the Rosemont in Brooklyn. Edison ceased record production entirely in 1929, and the Georgia Melodians remained largely overlooked for seven decades until Timeless Historical reissued twenty of their titles in 1996.