Franklyn Taft Melrose (November 26, 1907 – September 1, 1941) was an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

, who recorded as Kansas City Frank. He was born in Sumner, Illinois and was the younger brother of

Walter Melrose Walter Melrose (October 26, 1889– May 30, 1973) was a music publisher and lyricist in the 1920s and 1930s. Background He was born in Sumner, Illinois, and was the brother of Lester Melrose, with whom he established a music store in Chicago. Th ...

and

Lester Melrose Lester Franklin Melrose (December 14, 1891 – April 12, 1968) was a talent scout who was one of the first American producers of Chicago blues records. Career Lester Franklin Melrose was born in Sumner, Illinois, the second of six children ...

, who had set up the Melrose Brothers Music Company in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, in 1918. He became one of the leading figures in the Chicago blues and jazz scene of the 1920s and 1930s. Frank’s first instrument was violin, but he later took up piano. He was strongly influenced by his brothers’ business partner, Jelly Roll Morton. In 1924, he left home and began drifting around, playing and settling for short periods in St. Louis,

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

and

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

. He also played occasionally in Chicago clubs with Morton. In 1929, his brother Lester, recorded him performing piano solos, which were released under the pseudonym of "Broadway Rastus", and in 1930. Following another trip to Kansas City, he recorded "Jelly Roll Blues" and other tunes. These were issued in Brunswick Records’ “race” series under the pseudonym of "Kansas City Frank", and for some years were wrongly assumed to be the work of Morton. In the 1930s, Melrose continued to play piano in small clubs and bars, either solo or as part of a band, while occasionally working in a factory to support his family. He also recorded sporadically with

Johnny Dodds Johnny Dodds (; April 12, 1892 – August 8, 1940) was an American jazz clarinetist and alto saxophonist based in New Orleans, best known for his recordings under his own name and with bands such as those of Joe "King" Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, ...

, George Barnes and others. He played on his last recording session in 1941 with Bud Jacobson's Jungle Kings. On Labor Day of 1941, he was found dead in the street after being killed in a fracas in a club in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

References

External links

Biographical article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Melrose, Frank 1907 births 1941 deaths American jazz pianists American male pianists Musicians from Chicago 20th-century American pianists People from Sumner, Illinois Jazz musicians from Illinois 20th-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians People murdered in Illinois American murder victims Male murder victims