Loring McMurray

Loren Dallas McMurray was born in McPherson, Kansas, some 200 miles southwest of Kansas City, on September 19, 1897 to Leon Dallas McMurray (1873-1915) and his wife Mary, nee DeGroot (1875-1968). Their one other child was a girl, Bonnie Dee McMurray. Leon McMurray was not only McPherson's Postmaster but also led his own saxophone band, and it was with his father's band that Loren cut his musical teeth on a wide repertoire of musical styles. As early as 1914 young Loren was attracting favourable comments about his musical abilities and in 1917 he left McPherson and moved to Kansas City, spending a season with a concert band on the Redpath-Horner Chautauqua circuit. Following his Chautauqua season McMurray found work in Kansas City with Emil Chaquette, a violinist and leader of a 'society orchestra.' Shortly after, Chaquette teamed up with pianist and fellow bandleader Eddie Kuhn to form the seven-piece Kuhn-Chaquette Orchestra, with McMurray as their star soloist. The band’s tour ultimately landed them in New York where, as 'Eddie Kuhn's Dance Specialists,' they recorded a small number of titles for Pathe and Emerson on 1920. Returning to Kansas City in early January 1921, McMurray realised that his career was being stifled in the mid-West and that he had to return to New York to really make headway in the music business, and in particular in the business of making records. Consequently in June 1921 Loren and his new wife Mary left Kansas City for the Big Apple, renting an apartment in Harlem at 518 West 145th Street. Initially McMurray found work with supper club bands such as those of Eddie Elkins and Mike Markel but soon found that far more lucrative supplementary work was to be had by becoming one of the rapidly growing numbers of musicians finding steady work as freelance recording session men. McMurray, as far as is known, made his first records away from the Eddie Kuhn band in the summer of 1921 with Lanin's Southern Serenaders. Aside from his work with Lanin's Southern Serenaders, McMurray was also busy with studio work for Lanin under both his own name and as Bailey's Lucky Seven on Gennett, as well as work for bandleaders Eddie Elkins and Mike Markel and possibly with the Columbians Dance Orchestra. Several sides from 1921/2 by Mike Markel’s Orchestra heavily feature McMurray. According to contemporary press reports, McMurray was briefly a member of Paul Whiteman's Orchestra - certainly by his own testimony, in the form of letters to his mother and sister, is known recently that he recorded with The Virginians, a ‘jazz band’ drawn from the Whiteman personnel and directed by multi-instrumentalist Ross Gorman. Loren McMurray died on October 29 of 1922 due to the abrasion of mucous membrane of his nose.