Biography
Marlowe Morris earned steady work as a pianist on sessions led by top jazz horn players such as Ben Webster and Lester Young, while also accompanying boogie-woogie and classic blues performers including Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing. He further distinguished himself as an inventive and widely imitated player of the cumbersome Hammond organ. In his youth he experimented with several instruments before concentrating on keyboards, acquiring skills on drums, harmonica, and ukulele along the way. His debut professional engagement on piano came in 1935 with vocalist June Clark, a collaboration that lasted two years. After that period he performed as a solo pianist for several seasons until he entered the group of tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, remaining from 1940 to 1941, at which point he entered the Army. Upon completing his military service he performed during the first half of the 1940s alongside Toby Browne, Al Sears, drummer Sid Catlett, guitarist Tiny Grimes, and his own trio. He subsequently reduced his playing to part-time hours while taking daytime employment at the post office. Beginning in 1949 he resumed full-time musical activity, appearing chiefly as a solo organist. During the mid-1960s he directed the Marlowe Morris Trio, which included tenor saxophonist Julian Dash. The Columbia release Play the Thing by the Morris group received the Grand Prix du Disque from the Hot Club de France. His most prominent public showcase arrived with his appearance in the 1944 film Jammin' the Blues, one of the stronger jazz motion pictures of the swing period; shot in Hollywood, the production placed him among such colleagues as trumpeter Harry Edison, tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Illinois Jacquet, guitarist Barney Kessel, bassist Red Callender, drummer Sid Catlett, and vocalist Mary Bryant. Marlowe Morris was the nephew of cornetist and bandleader Thomas Morris.