Chauncey Morehouse
b. 11 March 1902, Niagara Falls, New York, USA, d. 3 November 1980. Morehouse's early career found him playing drums in the pit at silent-movie theatres, from which he graduated to danceband work. In 1922 he joined the popular band led by Paul Specht, with whom he came to New York. His recordings with Frank Guarente's Georgians (a band drawn from the Specht group) attracted much favourable attention in the jazz world. After leaving Specht, Morehouse remained in New York, playing in the bands of Ted Weems and Howard Lanin. In 1925 he joined one of contractor Jean Goldkette's bands, this one at the Goldkette flagship ballroom, the Greystone in Detroit. In the Goldkette band, Morehouse accompanied major jazz artists such as Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer, making records which became classics of their kind. After the Goldkette band folded, Morehouse returned to New York and in 1930 began a gradual drift into studio work, which is where he remained for the next three decades. He retired at the end of the '60s, but played occasionally thereafter with bands such as the New York Jazz Repertory Orchestra and a revived Goldkette band.