Buddy Morrow

Throughout his career Buddy Morrow cherished the chance to lead and perform with big bands while striving to sustain the spirit of swing from earlier decades. He first took up the trombone at age 12 and soon found local work. Rapid progress prompted a move to New York for studies at the Institute of Musical Art. His initial recording session took place in 1936 alongside vocalist Amanda Randolph and trumpeter Sharkey Bonano. Still known then as Moe Zudekoff, he adopted his professional name in the early 1940s and stayed active throughout the swing era, contributing to ensembles led by Artie Shaw in 1936–37 and again in 1940, as well as Bunny Berigan, Frank Froeba, Eddie Duchin, Tommy Dorsey in 1938, Paul Whiteman from 1939 to 1940, and Bob Crosby. Following Navy service between 1941 and 1944, he joined Jimmy Dorsey’s Orchestra in 1945. That same year, at 26, he launched his own big band, yet the venture collapsed almost immediately. He spent the rest of the decade as a studio musician. In 1950 Morrow assembled another orchestra that achieved notable popularity by applying an R&B-inflected approach to classic standards and scoring a hit with “Night Train.” He returned primarily to studio work through most of the 1960s and 1970s, though he made occasional appearances with the World’s Greatest Jazz Band in 1970 and assumed leadership of Tommy Dorsey’s ghost band in the late 1970s. From that point onward he remained among the small number of musicians sustaining full-time big bands devoted to melodic dance music rooted in the swing tradition.