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... words my wife always LOVES to hear

No, it's not some rare, discarded phonograph, but it is something that will go into my music room, perhaps next to my old (still playable) mandolin:
I did a little research and it appears this is a group of young men who went to the Alouette Music School in Passaic, NJ. I know what you're thinking; what does this have to do with talking machines or old records? Well if you check out this article from 1928 you'll see who their special guest on stage was (and turns out to have been a special guest on more than one occasion):
Yes, it was the Hilo Hawaiian Trio of Paterson, NJ!

Anyway, I didn't know if anyone here may have more insights into this group, I imagine we have more than a few members in NJ who may have heard of this school. In any case I'll clean it up, make some repairs, and up it'll go. I can't believe someone almost threw this in a dumpster

Here are a couple more articles I found, both use the same photo as each other even though one article is from 1926 and the other from 1929. The image is different from the one I found at the dump (though similar), my photo says 1923-1927.

Nice save! Congratulations.

Lots of 'The Gibson' headstocks...Mmmmmm...

Free is good! Cool stuff for free is far better.

James.

Sweet! Nice find.

GREAT!! edisonplayer.

Gavin Rice has to be in there somewhere!

What a fabulous image and thanks for posting the related newspaper articles! Gibson mandolins from the teens and twenties are another one of my passions. Below is a Gibson catalog page.

What you are seeing is a Gibson Mandolin Orchestra or Club. These clubs were very popular in communities and universities. The Gibson instruments were the highest grade you could buy and Gibson made every effort to make sure their teachers supplied Gibson instruments to all of their students. Gibson provided all the orchestra voices at several price levels. The violin part would be played by the mandolin, the viola part by the mandola, the violin cello part by the mando-cello and Gibson even made a mando bass. The plectrum mandolin family instruments could be mastered more easily than the bowed violin family instruments. The players could make reasonable music with just a few years of study. There were virtuoso mandolinist exceptions of course.

Your framed photo includes several different A-model (oval shaped) mandolins: a few H-model mandolas (also oval): standing to the right is a K-model mando-cello. There are no mando basses but there is a Gibson L-4 and a L-3 (probably) guitar. The banjo like instruments in the front is a hybrid called. Mandolin-banjo, the one standing up is probably an Orpheum. Mandolin banjos became popular as music shifted towards jazz, the mandolin player could pick it up without further study.

The A mandolin in the front row to the far right dates from about 1927-28 so the photo would not have been taken any earlier.

Notice the distinctive narrow wedge shaped peghead used from about 1923-1928, collectors call this a “snakehead” but that is a modern term. It is hard to see but the words “The Gibson” (company) are inlaid across the peg heads of most of the Gibson instruments. There was a shift from the angled inlay to one going straight across the peghead in about 1928, notice the two mandolins to the right in the front row.

Probably, more than you wanted to know.

Mark

Mark,

What great background! Thanks!!