Chauncey Morehouse

Morehouse was born in Niagara Falls, New York on March 11, 1902 and was raised in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he played drums from a very early age.[1] As a high schooler, he led a group called the Versatile Five.[2] He landed a job with Paul Specht's orchestra from 1922 to 1924 (including to England in 1923).[2] He played with Jean Goldkette from 1925 to 1927, Adrian Rollini in 1927, and Don Voorhees in 1928–29.[2] In the period 1927–29 he also recorded with Frankie Trumbauer, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, The Dorsey Brothers, and Joe Venuti.[2]

From 1929 Morehouse was active chiefly as a studio musician, and in radio and television.[2] In 1938, he assembled a percussion ensemble which played instruments that were designed by Morehouse and Stan King and that were tuned chromatically.[1]

He invented a set of N'Goma drums – "14 chromatically tuned snare drums mounted on a circular bar" – around 1932.[2] He worked in studios into the 1970s; in that decade he retired from studio work and began playing jazz again, including at festivals.[1] He played at Carnegie Hall in 1975, with other former members of the Goldkette orchestra.[2] Formerly a resident of the Vincentown section of Southampton Township, New Jersey, Morehouse died on October 31, 1980, at a nursing home in Medford, New Jersey, at the age of 78.[2][3]