Chauncey Morehouse

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

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

He invented a set of N'Goma drums – "14 chromatically tuned snare drums mounted on a circular bar" – around 1932.[1] He worked in studios into the 1970s; in that decade he retired from studio work and began playing jazz again, including at festivals.[2] He played at Carnegie Hall in 1975, with other former members of the Goldkette orchestra.[1] 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.[1][3]