Maurie Orodenker ''(né'' Maurice, or Morris, Harry Orodenker; 21 December 1908

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

– 8 October 1993

) was an American journalist, music critic and advertising agency executive. In the 1940s, when working as a record reviewer on ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large adverti ...

'' magazine, he was one of the first to use the term "

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm ...

" to describe upbeat

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...

and

swing Swing or swinging may refer to: Apparatus * Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth * Pendulum, an object that swings * Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus * Sex swing, a type of harness for sexual intercourse * Swing ri ...

music of the type which soon afterwards became known as "

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

Life and career

Born and raised in Philadelphia, he graduated from Franklin and Marshall College and received a master's degree in Criminology from the University of Pennsylvania. Based in

, he was working for ''

'' by the late 1930s, a period when he was credited with being, with Joe Csida ''(né'' Joseph George Csida; 1912–1996), the first to seek to measure the popularity of songs on the basis of

jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons, with letters and numbers on them, which are used to sele ...

plays as an alternative to

sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed books or pamphlets in English, ...

sales. In 1942, in one of his regular record review columns, he described

Sister Rosetta Tharpe Sister Rosetta Tharpe (born Rosetta Nubin, March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973) was an American singer and guitarist. She gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics a ...

's vocals on Lucky Millinder's "Rock Me" as "rock-and-roll spiritual singing", one of the first recorded uses of the phrase to describe a style of music, and he continued to use the term regularly in reviews over the next few years, several years before its popularisation by

Alan Freed Albert James "Alan" Freed (December 15, 1921 – January 20, 1965) was an American disc jockey. He also produced and promoted large traveling concerts with various acts, helping to spread the importance of rock and roll music throughout Nor ...

and others. J. J. Hayes's Amazing Antifolk Explicator & Philosophic Analyzer
/ref> In 1945, for instance, he described

Erskine Hawkins Erskine Ramsay Hawkins (July 26, 1914 – November 11, 1993) was an American trumpeter and big band leader from Birmingham, Alabama, dubbed "The 20th Century Gabriel". He is best remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" (1 ...

' version of "

Caldonia "Caldonia" is a jump blues song, first recorded in 1945 by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five. Although credited to Fleecie Moore, his wife at the time, Jordan is the actual songwriter. The song was a hit for Jordan as well as several other musici ...

" as "right rhythmic rock and roll music", a phrase precisely repeated in his 1946 review of "Sugar Lump" by

Joe Liggins Joseph Christopher Liggins, Jr. (born Theodro Elliott; July 9, 1916 – July 26, 1987) was an American R&B, jazz and blues pianist and vocalist who led Joe Liggins and his Honeydrippers in the 1940s and 1950s. His band appeared often on the ''B ...

. He established his own advertising agency in 1952, and also continued to contribute regularly to ''Billboard'' well into the 1980s. In later life he became noted as a collector of

haggadot The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each Jew ...

, books containing

Passover Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or spring. ...

stories read during the

Seder The Passover Seder (; he, סדר פסח , 'Passover order/arrangement'; yi, סדר ) is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the eve of the 15th day of Nisan in the Hebrew c ...

meal, many of which he obtained from old bookstores and

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of wor ...

s while traveling in Europe. Andy Wallace, Obituary: ''Maurie Orodenker; Owned Ad Agency'', Philadelphia Inquirer, October 9, 1993
/ref>Michael D. Schaffer, ''Passover Books, 2,500 Of Them, Are His Passion'', Philadelphia Inquirer, April 16, 1989
/ref> His surname derived from the

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

city of

Horodenka Horodenka ( uk, Городе́нка, pl, Horodenka, occasionally ''Horodence'', yi, האראדענקע ''Horodenke'') is a city located in Kolomyia Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, in Western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Horodenka ...

. He died at the age of 84 at

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Thomas Jefferson University Hospital is the flagship hospital of Jefferson Health, a multi-state non-profit health system based in Philadelphia. The hospital serves as the teaching hospital for Thomas Jefferson University. History Originall ...

in Philadelphia, survived by his wife Edith, daughter Harriet, and son Jerry.

References

External links

Orodenker papers at Temple University Libraries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orodenker, Maurie 1908 births 1993 deaths Writers from Philadelphia American music critics American music journalists 20th-century American non-fiction writers Journalists from Pennsylvania 20th-century American journalists American male journalists 20th-century American male writers