Theodore Salvatore Fiorito (December 20, 1900 – July 22,
1971), known professionally as Ted Fio Rito, was an American composer,
orchestra leader, and keyboardist, on both the piano and the Hammond organ, who
was popular on national radio broadcasts in the 1920s and 1930s. His name is
sometimes given as Ted Fiorito or Ted FioRito.
Remembered as swank bandleader and composer of remarkably
infectious melodies, Ted Fio Rito was born Teodorico Salvatore Fiorito in
Newark, New Jersey to an Italian immigrant couple, tailor Louis (Luigi) Fiorito
and Eugenia Cantalupo Fiorito, when they were both 21 years old. Ted attended
Barringer High School in Newark. He began his career at the age of 16 playing
piano in a nickelodeon, after which he worked as a song demonstrator for
publisher Al Piantadosi. By the time he was 18, Fio Rito was a member of Ross
Gorman's band.
He was still in his teens when he landed a job in 1919 as
a pianist at Columbia's New York City recording studio, working with the Harry
Yerkes bands—the Yerkes Novelty Five, Yerkes' Jazarimba Orchestra and The Happy
Six. His earliest compositions were recorded by the Yerkes groups and Art
Highman's band.
Fio Rito's own orchestra was initially named for
Detroit's Oriole Terrace, where he premiered the ensemble in partnership with
Dan Russo. As this band roamed the mid-west throughout the mid-'20s, it became
known as the Russo-Fio Rito Orchestra. They then held down a steady gig playing
sugary music for four years at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Atlantic City.
Their theme song was called "Rio Rita." The foundation for this
success was Fio Rito's success as a composer.
In 1922 he had attracted a lot of attention with a little
vamp called the "Doo Dah Blues" and the famously frantic "Toot
Toot Tootsie," forever to be associated with Al Jolson, who premiered it
in October of 1921, revisiting the song relentlessly for decades. In 1923, Fio
Rito published "When Lights Are Low" (not to be confused with Benny
Carter's melody of the same name) and "No, No, Nora," a hit for the
Benson Orchestra after being popularized by Ruth Etting.
In 1924, Fio Rito provided the world with "Charley,
My Boy." This song was to become strangely popular during the late '40s
and early '50s as a barrelhouse sing-along number which assumed alarming
connotations when recorded by an all-male glee club. More important in the long
run was "I Need Some Pettin'," immortalized in 1924 by Bix
Beiderbecke and the Wolverine Orchestra. Fio Rito published a sunny little opus
in 1925 entitled "I Never Knew"; this became a standard jam vehicle
for jazz ensembles during the '30s, '40s, and '50s. That's what makes jazz so
interesting: a harmless ditty from 1925 becomes profound in 1944 when handled
by Lester Young.
As Fio Rito's focus switched from composing to full-time
band leading, he seems to have only had time to knock out a handful of
memorable titles. 1928 was the year of "Laugh Clown Laugh"
(eventually interpreted by everyone from Groucho Marx to Abbey Lincoln) and
"King for a Day," the song that gave Ted Lewis something to howl and
gesticulate about for the rest of his career. Fio Rito introduced "Then
You've Never Been Blue" in 1929, but a glance at the titles of songs he
wrote thereafter indicates a soapy emulsification peculiar to much of the pop
music published during the '30s. Maybe Fio Rito didn't need to write great
songs after 1929.
He composed more than 100 songs, collaborating with such
lyricists as Ernie Erdman, Gus Kahn, Sam Lewis, Cecil Mack, Albert Von Tilzer,
and Joe Young. He became very busy and enjoyed terrific success on radio and in
the movies, often working closely with that epiglottal wonder, Dick Powell.
Well before she became a nationally advertised sex symbol, young Betty Grable
appeared with Fio Rito's band in 1933. It seems oddly appropriate that this
somewhat ossified orchestra was featured on the Frigidaire Show in 1936.
The rest of Fio Rito's career may be sketched in regional
instalments: steadily popular on the west Coast during the '30s, he lingered in
comparative ellipsis during the '40s. He fronted the house band at a restaurant
in Chicago during the late '50s, and at his own club in Scottsdale, AZ
throughout the '60s. Fio Rito's last stand was with a quartet in Sacramento in
1970. He died in Scottsdale, AZ on July 22, 1971.
(Info edited from All Music & Wikipedia)
1 comment:
For the “Ted Fio Rito (aka Ted Fiorito) Collection 1925-1935” go here for 147 mp3’s
https://archive.org/details/TedFioRitoCollection1925-1935.
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