Jazz
Russ Morgan - Vocals
Russ Morgan & His Orchestra
Jimmy Lewis - Vocals
Mullen Sisters - Vocals
Phyllis Lynne - Vocals
Dave Dexter, Jr. - Liner Notes
This is an album of radio transcriptions by Russ Morgan and His Orchestra. The performances are good, the sound quality is fine, and the disc has a reasonable running time of over an hour. But the album's title is deceptive: the word "original" suggests that these are studio recordings, which they are not, and the word "hits" suggests that they were among Morgan's popular records of the period, also untrue. In fact, none of his hits are here, even as re-recordings, though it could be argued that some of the songs were hits -- for other artists. Docked one diamond for dishonesty.
--- William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Russ Morgan
Active Decades: '30s, '40s and '50s
Born: Apr 29, 1904 in Scranton, PA
Died: Jul 08, 1969 in Las Vegas, NV
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Big Band, Sweet Bands
Russ Morgan was a major arranger and composer in the pre-rock era. He played in New York groups during the early '20s and did arrangements for Victor Herbert and John Philip Sousa. He was a music director on radio in Detroit in 1926, doing arrangements for Fletcher Henderson, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, the Boswell Sisters, and the Dorsey brothers. Later, Morgan wrote Cotton Club reviews, conducted an orchestra on Broadway, and served as music director for Brunswick. He played with Freddy Martin in 1934 and formed his own band in 1936. During the late '30s,'40s, and '50s, he led an extremely successful orchestra. The songs were simple, coy, and often embarrassingly contrived, but radio audiences loved them. Morgan introduced The Ames Brothers singing group in 1949. The coming of rock & roll ended Morgan's reign, but he kept doing concerts and shows in Las Vegas during the '50s and '60s. His son Jack kept the band going into the mid-'80s.
---Ron Wynn, All Music Guide |
