DESCRIPTION:
If this group has a vaguely familiar sound, it's for a very good reason! This orchestra, under the direction of Sam Lanin, made all their recordings between July 1921 and July 1922, this one in January of '22. In the same month they made their last recording on Regal, they also made their first recording on Brunswick under the name The Cotton Pickers. In addition to Phil Napoleon, there are two other noteworthy personnel present: The Old Schnozzola himself, 28 year old Jimmy Durante, plays the piano. On a sadder note, the immensely gifted saxophone player Loring McMurray was amongst the personnel and you'll hear him express his talent in this arrangement. However, after recording four sides under his own direction on the Gennett label in 1922, he succumbed in October of that year at the age of 25 to blood poisoning following what appeared at first to be a minor nasal infection, thus depriving the jazz world of his great talent. When you hear him play, you can't help but thing "Bennie Krueger", his sound a technique is so similar. This is just speculation on my part, but I have a notion that the slightly younger Krueger, once McMurray was deceased, such was his admiration of him that he perpetuated his sound and his style as his own.