Trick or treat, its Mortimer G. Corb. This is not the usual beginning for the biography of a jazz bass player, but it will all make sense eventually. First off any confusion regarding both the name of this artist and the genres of music he was involved with should be dispensed with. Morty Corb is the most common manner in which this performer is credited, his discography itself providing plenty of justification for calling him both a jazzman and a pop studio sessionman. An obvious spelling variation on this is Morty Korb. Although his name has been mentioned alongside studio bassist Carol Kaye, Corb seems to have curbed his session availability as the rock and roll era progressed or perhaps regressed. The bassist instead went to work at Disneyland, playing in the attraction's bands but also mingling with special effects folk.

Corb had a particular interest in scary, haunted house stuff. Out of this developed a project known a the "Hallowed Haunting Grounds". Basically, this is just one of those houses that provides the highlight in an evening of trick or treating, one in which the family has gone to some trouble to create a scary environment. Corb, however, had a special flair for theatrical effects that made his homemade shenanigan impressive even to the Tinsel Town crowd. Upon moving to Los Angeles from Texas in 1947, Corb apparently obsessed about two things, music and Disneyland. He was already playing guitar and then bass; it can be assumed his career occupied much of the time available for spooky fantasizing. He performed and recorded with leaders such as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Pete Fountain, spent four years on Bob Crosby's television show and by 1996 had worked on possibly as many as 300 recording sessions.

The year 1973 was the first Halloween in which the Corb home was done up in a manner that might have excited Forrest J. Ackerman. This was no ordinary living room spook show, Corb having assimilated the look, character, detail and even effects of many Disneyland fright features. "That first year was decidedly modest," an on-line history of Corb's haunting glows, ". . .but every show became more spectacular as experience and resources grew. Many years later things are just a bit out of hand." His son Gary Korb and wife Florence Korb are also heavily involved in the Halloween project, a notorious stop on any Hollywood trek and treat. To go out on a blue rather than scary note, it should be mentioned that Corb's only album under his own name was the 1957 Strictly From Dixie featuring Morty Corb and His Dixie All Stars. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi