Loren McMurray (saxophone) with the orchestras of Eddie Kuhn (1920): You’re Just Like a Rose. Mike Markel (1921): I Wonder If You Still Care For Me, I Wonder Who You’re Calling Sweetheart, Say Persianna Say!, Idola, Blue Eyes Blues, Alabama Blues, Two Wooden Shoes. The Virginians (1922): I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate. Bailey’s Lucky Seven: Homesick. Lanin’s Southern Serenaders: Doo Dah Blues, Shake It and Break It, Eddie Leonard Blues. Eddie Davis: Hot Lips. Mike Markel (1922): Lonesome Mama Blues.

This starts in 1920 with a KC band where Mac got his launch. Seven tunes from Markel is maybe a slog but this music is interesting and well recorded for 1921 from a talented society orchestra, McMurray being featured. In the second half the jazz tunes from 1922 pick up the pace. That’s Cliff Edwards eefing on Doo Dah Blues, a sample of what would become widespread two years later. McMurray helped expand the paradigm for the alto as the dominant melodic instrument (as did Bechet for soprano) plus low register slap tongue in rhythm support. McMurray had a busy recording career for about three years 1920-1922 and then he was gone at age 25, leaving the legacy of the alto as a star lead instrument.

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