Composed by Fred Fisher; arranged by Joe Lippman.
Recorded live in performance at the Paradise Restaurant in Manhattan on April 3, 1938.
Bunny Berigan, first and solo trumpet; Steve Lipkins and Irving Goodman, trumpets; Thomas “Sonny” Lee and Al George, trombones; Robert “Mike” Doty, first alto saxophone; Joe Dixon, alto saxophone and clarinet; Georgie Auld and Clyde Rounds, tenor saxophones; Joe Lippman, piano; Tom Morganelli, guitar; Hank Wayland, bass; Johnny Blowers, drums.
The story:
One of the most fortuitous (for Berigan fans) developments to have occurred while the Bunny played at the Paradise Restaurant in the spring of 1938 was the recording of many of its sustaining broadcasts emanating from that location. Most of these airchecks began to appear on LP records in the late 1970s, and have been commercially available since then. They reveal much more clearly the capabilities of the Berigan band, and the true breadth of their repertoire, balancing in large measure the grossly distorted and limited picture that one gets by simply listening to their Victor recordings from 1937 and the first few months of 1938.
These airchecks also reveal that contrary to conventional wisdom, Bunny Berigan was very much taking care of commercial business by frequently playing on the air many of the tunes he had recorded for Victor, to promote those recordings, as all other successful bandleaders also did. The first such recordings from the Paradise were made on March 27, one week after Berigan had opened there. The tunes played were Berigan’s theme, briefly; “Back In Your Own Back Yard” (a swinging instrumental); the much maligned(1) “Down Stream”; “Rose Room”; “Sweet as a Song” (vocal, Gail Reese); “Let ‘Er Go” (as an instrumental); “‘Round My Old Deserted Farm “(which would soon be recorded with a vocal); “How’d Ya Like To Love Me?” (vocal); a romping instrumental version of “Louisiana;” and then the closing theme. It was a great broadcast in 1938, and still is today. An excellent cross-section of the off-the-air recordings of the Berigan band from the Paradise Restaurant (seventeen tracks) is to be found on Jazz Hour-1022.(1A)
On April 1, Bunny guested, along with vocalist Mildred Bailey, on a Paul Whiteman concert that was broadcast over WABC-New York from 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. It scarcely seemed possible that four and a half years of packed musical activity had passed for Bunny since he had been a member of Pops Whiteman’s orchestra. After a brief chat between Bunny and Whiteman, Berigan played “Dark Eyes,” then rushed back to the Paradise to rejoin his band in its show there.
On April 14, Berigan appeared on the Steinie Bottle Boys Swing Club on NBC, playing solos on “Posin’” and “Dinah.”(2)
The recollections of everyone connected with Berigan’s band during its run at the Paradise Restaurant were extremely positive. The band members were very happy to be off the road and at home in Manhattan. The drummer Johnny Blowers, who had only recently joined the band, got to know Bunny during that stand:
“We spent a lot of time together. I believe he liked me as a drummer and also as a person. When we were working at the Paradise, the band would play for two hours and then break for the floor-show, after which we would go back and finish the night. But it was a long intermission, and Bunny would ask me ‘are you going to join me tonight?’ And I usually did. That meant a fast trip to Mama Leone’s, the Italian Restaurant on Forty-ninth Street, for a spaghetti dinner or pizza, and always a large bottle of wine. I would fill my glass halfway, and Bunny would drink the rest. Bunny was an alcoholic, and eventually it killed him, but I don’t think he drank for pleasure. It was a compulsion, and I know he tried to fight it. He took the cure two or three times. I really believe that if AA had come along sooner than it did, he would gladly have joined. I know, too, that he was concerned about his family and wished he could see them more often. But a musician has a hard time trying to spend much time at home.”(3)
I have found that some of Blowers’s recollections are less than one hundred percent accurate. I do not really know what he meant when he said that Bunny “took the cure two or three times.”(4) There is certainly evidence that on many occasions, Berigan tried to greatly reduce the amount of alcohol he drank daily. But he was in no position to take time off and go somewhere to dry out and try to modify his behavior. He was far too busy. He had a lot of commitments, and most of them were sources of pressure for him. Invariably, when Bunny would try to drink less, his mood would turn from jovial and fun loving to sullen and standoffish. His trumpet playing would improve. The multitude of irritants he had in his life as a bandleader would bother him more. He would feel more and more stressed. The quick fix that always seemed to make things better was to take a few drinks. Bunny was now completely ensnared in the vicious cycle of alcohol addiction, but he was still able to function well enough when drinking to do what was necessary to perform as a virtuoso trumpet soloist and leader of one of the best swing bands of the day.
As happy and musically successful as Bunny and the band were during the Paradise engagement, things were happening behind the scenes that would ultimately affect the business side of the Berigan band negatively. Gene Krupa, now the leader of his own band, was also being managed by Arthur Michaud, Bunny’s personal manager. Michaud had continued representing Tommy Dorsey through the time in early 1937 when he was involved in launching Bunny Berigan as the leader of his own band. Now, most of Michaud’s attention during the spring of 1938 was being absorbed in activities involving the fledgling Krupa band. Michaud and attorney John Gluskin, the “money man” who possibly had an ownership interest in the Berigan band, as well as MCA, had all been involved first with TD, then Bunny, and now Gene. It was only a matter of time before conflicts of interest would occur, and they definitely did occur.
This item appeared in the April 13, 1938, issue of Variety: “Berigan’s crew holds forth for another four weeks at the Paradise Restaurant, New York City. Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa and Bunny Berigan are being booked under a policy which permits a dance promoter or theater operator a refund from a guaranteed figure if the date doesn’t turn out a profitable one.”(5) This was one of Arthur Michaud’s ideas. It put the risk of the success or failure of an engagement on the bandleader instead of the promoter. The incentive for the promoter to make the date successful was removed. Consequently, if a promoter was incompetent, or if a more famous band happened to be playing in the area, or if there was bad weather, or if there were any other circumstances that caused a gig to be unprofitable, the refund would come out of the band’s guarantee for the gig, not out of the promoter’s pocket. This scheme favored more established bands that were proven box office draws, and worked against newer bands that were still trying to establish themselves in the marketplace. Gene Krupa’s band in particular languished in the minor leagues for the next three-plus years as Gene followed the directions given to him by Michaud and his management team to the letter. Only when Gene deviated from the formula his managers had devised, and in 1941 hired singer Anita O’Day and trumpeter Roy Eldridge, both of whom his managers disliked, did his band move up the food chain. But Gene was not an alcoholic with the personal problems Bunny had. He was therefore able to wait for the right time to do what he thought was best for his band without suffering major setbacks in the daily operation of his organization.
Bunny Berigan did not need to bear any additional risks as a bandleader. His alcoholism hung over his career as a virtuoso trumpeter and bandleader like the sword of Damocles. MCA was now billing him as “The Miracle Man of Swing.” His sidemen, with an ironic humor so typical among jazz musicians, were now also referring to him among themselves as “The Miracle Man of Swing,” not necessarily because of his feats of trumpeting, as astonishing as they often were, but because they were constantly amazed that he could play at all after consuming so much alcohol each day. There was a feeling among them that it was only a matter of time until Bunny would crash and burn as a result of his toping. Nevertheless, throughout the spring of 1938, positive things continued to happen for the Berigan band, and the musicians continued to enjoy the good pay, good work and the musical kicks that often resulted.
The MCA/Michaud/Gluskin management troika staged a public relations lovefest on the stage of New York’s Paramount Theater, while Tommy Dorsey’s band was being presented there in April: “By way of exploiting Gene Krupa’s new litter of cats, which made its debut last Saturday at Atlantic City, N.J., Krupa, Bunny Berigan, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey staged an impromptu swing session during the last show at the Paramount Theater, New York City, where Tommy Dorsey’s band is currently filling a two weeks stand. The session jammed the Paramount to near capacity, but didn’t induce any shagging in the aisles. Playing as a unit the quartet wasn’t outstanding in view of their individual talents, but the solo licks were in the groove!”(6) Photos from this gathering have been published many times in the last eight-plus decades, almost always without a correct caption.
The music:
This well-balanced arrangement by Joe Lippman is basically a showcase for the jazz solos of Berigan and his tenor saxophone playing protege’, Georgie Auld. The chart also allows the well-coordinated and dynamic Berigan band to show how well it could play. The short introduction leads to the exposition of the main melody with the straight-muted trumpets taking the lead, supported by the strong rhythm team of Johnny Blowers (drums), Tom Morganelli (guitar), Hank Wayland (bass) and Joe Lippman at the piano, and asides from the saxophones. The secondary bridge melody is played by the fluid saxophones, led in splendid fashion by Mike Doty.
The band plays a short transition into Bunny’s full-chorus improvised trumpet solo. This is one of many examples of his artistry as a jazz musician: his trumpet sound is rich and full in all registers; his jazz ideas are stimulating, his sense of musical organization is present, as always – each idea and phrase melds into the one that follows, a climax is reached and the solo ends. And each note is delivered with rhythmic swagger.
Berigan was very generous in featuring young Mr. Auld; here he gets his own full chorus, and it is to his credit that he keeps up the momentum Bunny had established in his solo. The primary element of Auld’s playing in his Berigan years was his rhythmic intensity, and that is very much in evidence in this solo. However, he was also beginning to become more adept at creating interesting phrases based on the chords of whatever he was playing by this time, and his skill in doing this continued to increase for the next few years.
The dynamic and rhythmic intensity of Lippman’s arrangement drops after Auld’s solo, creating an effective contrast. Now the reed quartet, including Joe Dixon on clarinet and Clyde Rounds on baritone saxophone, plays the main melody softly and in unison, with rhythmic bursts provided by the open brass. This is followed by the rousing finale played by the entire band, with Berigan’s lead trumpet commanding the ensemble.
The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes:
(1) I say “much maligned” because jazz journalist Leonard Feather was in the Victor recording studio on March 15, 1938 when the Berigan band recorded (after numerous tries) “Down Stream.” He then wrote a summary of what he saw and heard at that session in which he embellished the facts, grossly overstating the number of takes required to get an acceptable master recording. Feather’s piece was later published in The Melody Maker on June 11, 1938, and thus acquired the authority of the printed word.
(1A) The tunes on Jazz Hour-1022: Theme and introduction; “Back in Your Own Back Yard,” “Rose Room,” “‘Round My Old Deserted Farm,” “Louisiana,” “It’s Wonderful,” “Devil’s Holiday,” “Whistle While You Work,” “Kiss Me Again,” “Sweet Varsity Sue,” “Shanghai Shuffle,” “Star Dust,” “A Study in Brown,” “I’ll Always Be in Love with You,” “Moonshine over Kentucky,” “Downstream,” and “Black Bottom.” Many of these recordings have been poster here at bunnyberiganmrtrumpet.com.
(2) This information was provided to me by Carl A. Hallstrom, who obtained it from the NBC Archive, Library of Congress.
(3) Back Beats and Rim Shots …the Johnny Blowers Story, by Warren W. Vache’ (1997) 39.
(4) The only time when Berigan may have actually sought professional help to deal with his alcoholism was in July of 1940, when he was in and out of Tommy Dorsey’s band.
(5) White materials: April 20, 1938.
(6) Variety: April 20, 1938, cited in the White materials: April 14, 1938.
I don’t recall the first version I heard of “Peg O’ My Heart.” It may have been the Harmonicats’ hit rendition, although my parents didn’t have that record in their collection. Then again, I had some awareness of the lyric, so I may first have heard a vocal treatment. In any case, I’m old enough to have had passive exposure at an early age to a Broadway entry of this type, because it was still relevant in pop culture. I suspect that few young people today know this sentimental number, now one hundred-plus years old. Bunny would have been a little boy of four when the song first appeared. I can imagine that he, with his keen ear, responded right away to the pretty tune, and I think we can deduce that he tucked the poignant melody away in his heart unconsciously, for future reference — as I’m sure was the case with the traditional “The Wearin’ of the Green.” Like all swing orchestra leaders, Bunny had to play the current fare, but I feel it’s his band’s performances, whether for Victor or on location, of the jazz warhorses and unlikely ditties such as this one that reveal the most about the virtuoso musician’s taste.
We hear, and are perhaps inclined to believe, romantic rags-to-riches stories of a meteoric rise from obscurity to ubiquitousness. I think it seldom actually happens this way, however. Crafters of fiction-based biographies of pop artists evidently believe that few readers have the patience to wade through an excruciating account that describes long lean years of slogging Bunny Berigan, Tommy Dorsey and Gene Krupa — all of whom unquestionably had a natural aptitude for music — scuffled and experienced professional disappointments before attaining their career zeniths. Crazy — I mean, insane! — schemes like that doozy concocted by Arthur Michaud, to protect the guys promoting or hosting the gigs and screw over the bandleaders, created yet another obstacle on the path to grand success. It’s interesting to consider the impact of this policy on the established Dorsey aggregation, the nascent Krupa crew and the Berigan band — trying to maintain the momentum of its roll out in the previous year … hampered, to some degree, by the wild card that its leader’s alcoholism presented. As we know, Tommy, even with his own propensity for overindulgence in booze, wasn’t going to allow anything to stop him from achieving his dream of livin’ in a great big way through bandleading. Krupa, in stark contrast to how he was portrayed in the wake of the ridiculous pot bust, was a disciplined man, who persisted for years –and then really showed Michaud when the hiring of Roy and Anita turned out to be the thing to lift his outfit into the big leagues. Bunny, though at least the musical equal of TD and GK, was the most vulnerable, professionally speaking, under Michaud’s disadvantageous new booking terms.
Each of the Peg renditions — this Paradise take, the Rhythm Makers transcription and the ’39 Victor record — has things to recommend it. It’s a testament to Bunny’s musical acumen that all three treatments reflect the standards to which he held his evolving band, even as things — first subtly and then unmistakably — began to slip beyond control. His sidemen may have joked about his “Miracle Man of Swing” billing — but I’d say he rated it! I think we can thank the audience for the electricity with which the Paradise performance bristles. The ensemble achieves the dynamics that are so vital to Joe Lippman’s arrangement; Johnny Blowers, though not a drummer of Buddy Rich’s stature, swings the band deftly and with fire; the reeds’ chorus is beautiful; Georgie’s growth as a soloist from his debut with the orch in the previous year is plainly apparent; Hank Wayland’s thumping bass in the soft riffing passage preceding the finale creates anticipation — and Bunny’s solo and lead playing is that of a man who is confident and optimistic as well as, obviously, supremely talented and creative. I love his nod to his Dorsey Brothers “Mood Hollywood” solo in the last eight bars of his inspired spot! At the time of the Paradise engagement, before storm clouds began to gather, the Berigan orch stood, musically, shoulder to shoulder with the Goodman and Dorsey units, who, as we know, proved to be on firmer commercial footing as time wore on. We must be grateful that aural documentation of this halcyon period exists to show us, as the Victor sides as a whole do not, what this band was all about.