Meritt Records


Meritt Records was a jazz and blues record company and label that existed from 1925 to 1929. It was founded in Kansas City by Winston Holmes, the owner of a music store. Records were made in his studio and sold only in his store.
Holmes produced about 20 double-sided acoustically recorded gramophone records in the mid and late 1920s. Most of the sides are of locally based jazz and blues performers, plus some gospel music and sermons.
Meritt Records was also a jazz record label started by Jerry Valburn in 1979. It made limited-edition reissues of early jazz that could be bought only through mail-order by members of the Meritt Record Society. Valburn also issued the Duke Ellington Treasury Series. These were recordings of radio broadcasts Ellington made for the U.S. Treasury Department in 1945–46.