From 1945 to 1954 Dorham played in the Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Eckstine orchestras, Kenny Clarke's Be Bop Boys, the Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington orchestras, the Charlie Parker quintet and Art Blakey's original Jazz Messengers. He then briefly led his own group, the Jazz Prophets, before replacing the recently deceased Clifford Brown in the Max Roach Quintet in 1956. From 1958 on he led several groups of his own.
He composed the jazz standard "Blue Bossa."