Transcription Mystery Disc #178

What I know of the Milt Herth Trio you could fit on a matchbook cover. They were an obscure music trio, half jazz, half novelty wholly strange. They were sometimes also billed as the Milt Hurth Trio, as this one it labeled. And that's not just random small town playbills. It was sometimes spelling with a "U" in paid newspaper advertisements. More here.


This disc is an 8-inch metal core Recordisc with an outer edge start. It's partly labeled with the band name "Milt Hurth Trio" and the date 9-15-46.  The song name is not listed, and the initials CFC are in the center prominently. I think those are the engineers initials. But that's a guess. It could just as easily be a radio recording, there was a CFC in Canada in the mid 1940s, but I have nothing to corroborate that connection.

The group consisted of pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith, drummer O'Neil Spencer, and of course Organist Milt Herth. Sometimes they performed as a quartet with guitarist Teddy Bunn. Later Erinie Austin played drums for them. Herth cut as many as 8 sides for Decca in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and at least one for Coral around the same time. According to the 1943 Billboard Yearbook Herth's debut in radio came in 1933. Another source credits his debut to 1935 as an organist on WIND-AM.  He was still releasing marginally listenable organ music as late as 1955.