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Roaring 20s: Ted Fio Rito's Orch. - Then You've Never Been Blue, 1929

4,291 views · Published 27 October 2010 · 3:33 · Indexed 20 October 2026

Channel: 240252 · 2010 · Music

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Ted Fio Rito and His Edgewater Beach Hotel Orchestra -- Then You've Never Been Blue (Fiorito, Lewis,Young) -- Columbia, 1929

NOTE: Theodore Salvatore FIORITO (b. 1900, Newark, NJ -- d.1971, Scottsdale, Arizona). His name is sometimes given as Ted Fiorito, FioRito or Fio Rito. He was a composer, orchestra leader and keyboardist (on both the piano and the Hammond organ). He was in his teens when he got a job in 1919 as a pianist at Columbia's New York City recording studio, working with the Yerkes Novelty Five, Yerkes' Jazarimba Orchestra and the Happy Six. He moved to Chicago in 1921 to join Dan Russo's band, and the following year he was the co-leader of Russo and Fio Rito's Oriole Orchestra. When Russo and Fio Rito opened at Detroit's Oriole Terrace, their band was renamed the Oriole Terrace Orchestra. In 1924 the band returned to Chicago for a booking at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, where they did their first radio remote broadcast. In July 1926  the Russo-Fio Rito orchestra opened Chicago's famous Aragon Ballroom, doing radio remotes nationally from both the Aragon and the Trianon ballrooms. In 1928 Dan Russo left the band and Fio Rito took over as leader, touring the midwest with engagements in St. Louis, Kansas City and Cincinnati. Billed as Ted Fio Rito and His Edgewater Beach Hotel Orchestra, they headed for San Francisco to fill in for the Anson Weeks orchestra at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. In the 1930s Fio Rito reached a national audience through radio programs, including The Old Gold Hour, Hollywood Hotel, The Al Jolson Show, Frigidaire Frolics. During the 1940s, the band's popularity diminished, but Fio Rito continued to perform in Chicago and Arizona. He played in Las Vegas during the 1960s. In his last years, he led a small combo until his death from a heart attack. He is buried in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in LA.

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