Antonio Morelli
Encyclopedia
Antonio Morelli was a producer, arranger
, bandleader
, movie producer, and conductor
most well-known for serving as orchestra leader for the infamous Sands Hotel
Copa Room
in its Rat Pack
heyday from 1954 through 1971. He was music director, band leader, and friend to some of the biggest names in show business for twenty years and is credited with bringing classical music
to Las Vegas
. He was also a songwriter
, arranger
, and music director
for several Broadway Musicals, and beloved for his devotion to philanthropic endeavors in his community most notably founding The Las Vegas Pops.
), Sammy Davis, Jr.
(The Sounds of '66
, That's All!
), Tommy Sands
, Nat King Cole
and Count Basie
(a posthumous set, also recorded during the Sinatra at the Sands stand) were among those who recorded live albums at the Sands. The albums feature credits to many of the legendary musicians who performed on the albums and at the Copa Room
and to band leader, producer, and musical conductor Antonio Morelli who appeared on hundreds of such albums by these artists throughout the 1950s and 60s.
The greatest names in the entertainment industry graced the Copa Room
Stage (the showroom at the Sands, named after the famed Copacabana Club in New York City
) including Judy Garland
, Lena Horne
, (she was billed at the Sands as "The Satin Doll") Jimmy Durante
, Marlene Dietrich
, Tallulah Bankhead
, Bobby Darin
, Dean Martin
and Jerry Lewis
, along with "The Copa Girls". These were only a few of the legendary entertainers to not only perform at the Sands, but in all the showrooms along the Strip, from the late 40's until the early 90's. The public could sit ringside in a showroom holding no more than five hundred, paying as little as three dollars in the 50s up to $25.50 in the early 90s for the likes of Liza Minnelli
, Shirley Maclaine
and Diana Ross
. Much of the musical success of the Copa Room is credited to the room's band leader and musical conductor Antonio Morelli. Morelli not only acted as the band leader and musical conductor for the Copa Room during the Hotel's Rat Pack
heyday in the 1950s and 60s, he also played that role on hundreds of recorded albums by those same entertainers who graced the stage of the Copa including Frank Sinatra
, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett
, Dean Martin
, and many others. Oftentimes the festivities would carry over after hours to Morrelli's home in Las Vegas
, nicknamed "The Morelli House
, which was eventually relocated and sanctioned an historical landmark by the State of Nevada
.
The house is famous for being the home of Sands Hotel
band leader and musical conductor Antonio Morelli and his wife Helen during the Rat Pack
heyday of the 1950s and 60s. For thirty years it served as an after-hours congregating spot for some of the biggest names in entertainment including Frank Sinatra
, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin
, Tony Bennett
, Nat King Cole
, Judy Garland
, and many other famous names in show business. Morelli was very active in music circles in Nevada
and he and his wife were also very active in various charitable causes through the years. The house also has great significance for its mid-century modern architecture and because it was the only remaining home from the Desert Inn Estates, the community demolished to make way for the Wynn Las Vegas resort.
"Every city in the late '50s all had major nightclub entertainment," said Frank Leone, president of the Musicians Union of Las Vegas, Local 369, AFM. "Playing the Sands was the pinnacle of an entertainer's career. Only the best musicians were in Morelli's orchestra. Partly, that's what makes it such a historically significant era in this town. This performance will be a celebration of the birth of that kind of entertainment and the history of Las Vegas."
Not only did the musical legacy of Antonio Morelli live on in the preservation and designation of his home as an historical landmark, and through hundreds of recorded albums, but through his blood line as well. Morelli is the great uncle of contemporary singer-songwriter
and recording artist Ed Hale
who often cites the influence and impact that his "Uncle Tony" had on him as a very young child in relation to music.
Arranger
In investment banking, an arranger is a provider of funds in the syndication of a debt. They are entitled to syndicate the loan or bond issue, and may be referred to as the "lead underwriter". This is because this entity bears the risk of being able to sell the underlying securities/debt or the...
, bandleader
Bandleader
A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
, movie producer, and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
most well-known for serving as orchestra leader for the infamous Sands Hotel
Sands Hotel
The Sands Hotel was a historic Las Vegas Strip hotel/casino that operated from December 15, 1952 to June 30, 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, the Sands was the seventh resort that opened on the Strip....
Copa Room
Copa Room
The Copa Room was an entertainment nightclub showroom at the now-defunct Sands Hotel on The Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada.It was noteworthy for the large numbers of popular entertainers who performed there, including members of The Rat Pack, Count Basie, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Jimmy...
in its Rat Pack
Rat Pack
The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean...
heyday from 1954 through 1971. He was music director, band leader, and friend to some of the biggest names in show business for twenty years and is credited with bringing classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
to Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
. He was also a songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
, arranger
Arranger
In investment banking, an arranger is a provider of funds in the syndication of a debt. They are entitled to syndicate the loan or bond issue, and may be referred to as the "lead underwriter". This is because this entity bears the risk of being able to sell the underlying securities/debt or the...
, and music director
Music director
A music director may be the director of an orchestra, the director of music for a film, the director of music at a radio station, the head of the music department in a school, the co-ordinator of the musical ensembles in a university or college , the head bandmaster of a military band, the head...
for several Broadway Musicals, and beloved for his devotion to philanthropic endeavors in his community most notably founding The Las Vegas Pops.
Musical legacy
Dean Martin ("Live At The Sands - An Evening of Music, Laughter and Hard Liquor") Frank Sinatra (Sinatra at the SandsSinatra at the Sands
Sinatra at the Sands is a 1966 live album by Frank Sinatra, accompanied by Count Basie and his orchestra, conducted and arranged by Quincy Jones, recorded live at the Copa Room of the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas....
), Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....
(The Sounds of '66
The Sounds of '66
The Sounds of '66 is a 1966 live album by Sammy Davis, Jr., accompanied by the Buddy Rich Big Band.The album was recorded at the Sands Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.-original LP:Side A:# "Come Back to Me" – 2:56...
, That's All!
That's All!
That's All! is a 1966 live album by Sammy Davis, Jr., recorded at the Sands Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.-Track listing:# "Ain't I" – 1:02# "With a Song in My Heart" – 2:45...
), Tommy Sands
Tommy Sands
Tommy Adrian Sands is an American pop music singer and actor.-Early life:Born into a musical family in Chicago, Illinois, Sands' father was a pianist and his mother a big-band singer. While still young, he moved with his family to Shreveport, Louisiana...
, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
and Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
(a posthumous set, also recorded during the Sinatra at the Sands stand) were among those who recorded live albums at the Sands. The albums feature credits to many of the legendary musicians who performed on the albums and at the Copa Room
Copa Room
The Copa Room was an entertainment nightclub showroom at the now-defunct Sands Hotel on The Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada.It was noteworthy for the large numbers of popular entertainers who performed there, including members of The Rat Pack, Count Basie, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Jimmy...
and to band leader, producer, and musical conductor Antonio Morelli who appeared on hundreds of such albums by these artists throughout the 1950s and 60s.
The greatest names in the entertainment industry graced the Copa Room
Copa Room
The Copa Room was an entertainment nightclub showroom at the now-defunct Sands Hotel on The Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada.It was noteworthy for the large numbers of popular entertainers who performed there, including members of The Rat Pack, Count Basie, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Jimmy...
Stage (the showroom at the Sands, named after the famed Copacabana Club in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
) including Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, (she was billed at the Sands as "The Satin Doll") Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
, Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
, Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an award-winning American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante...
, Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
, Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
and Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
, along with "The Copa Girls". These were only a few of the legendary entertainers to not only perform at the Sands, but in all the showrooms along the Strip, from the late 40's until the early 90's. The public could sit ringside in a showroom holding no more than five hundred, paying as little as three dollars in the 50s up to $25.50 in the early 90s for the likes of Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
, Shirley Maclaine
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
and Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
. Much of the musical success of the Copa Room is credited to the room's band leader and musical conductor Antonio Morelli. Morelli not only acted as the band leader and musical conductor for the Copa Room during the Hotel's Rat Pack
Rat Pack
The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean...
heyday in the 1950s and 60s, he also played that role on hundreds of recorded albums by those same entertainers who graced the stage of the Copa including Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
, and many others. Oftentimes the festivities would carry over after hours to Morrelli's home in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, nicknamed "The Morelli House
Morelli House
Morelli House at 861 East Bridger Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada is listed on both the city and state registers of Historic Places. Built in 1959, it is a classic example of mid-century modern construction.- History :...
, which was eventually relocated and sanctioned an historical landmark by the State of Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
.
The house is famous for being the home of Sands Hotel
Sands Hotel
The Sands Hotel was a historic Las Vegas Strip hotel/casino that operated from December 15, 1952 to June 30, 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, the Sands was the seventh resort that opened on the Strip....
band leader and musical conductor Antonio Morelli and his wife Helen during the Rat Pack
Rat Pack
The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean...
heyday of the 1950s and 60s. For thirty years it served as an after-hours congregating spot for some of the biggest names in entertainment including Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
, Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, and many other famous names in show business. Morelli was very active in music circles in Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
and he and his wife were also very active in various charitable causes through the years. The house also has great significance for its mid-century modern architecture and because it was the only remaining home from the Desert Inn Estates, the community demolished to make way for the Wynn Las Vegas resort.
"Every city in the late '50s all had major nightclub entertainment," said Frank Leone, president of the Musicians Union of Las Vegas, Local 369, AFM. "Playing the Sands was the pinnacle of an entertainer's career. Only the best musicians were in Morelli's orchestra. Partly, that's what makes it such a historically significant era in this town. This performance will be a celebration of the birth of that kind of entertainment and the history of Las Vegas."
Not only did the musical legacy of Antonio Morelli live on in the preservation and designation of his home as an historical landmark, and through hundreds of recorded albums, but through his blood line as well. Morelli is the great uncle of contemporary singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
and recording artist Ed Hale
Ed Hale
Ed Hale is a writer, singer-songwriter, musician, populist blogger, activist, and controversial YouTube star. He was formerly known as Eddie Darling, and is currently the lead singer of the popular American Britpop and modern rock musical group Transcendence. He also performs, records and releases...
who often cites the influence and impact that his "Uncle Tony" had on him as a very young child in relation to music.