Composed by: Philip Braham (music) and Douglas Furber (lyric); arranged by Benny Carter.
Recorded by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra live in performance on the NBC Raleigh-Kool radio show on January 25, 1937 in New York.
Tommy Dorsey, lead trombone, directing: Bunny Berigan, solo trumpet; Bob Cusumano, (lead) Jimmy Welch and Joe Bauer, trumpets; Les Jenkins and Artie Foster, trombones; Freddie Stulce, lead alto saxophone; Joe Dixon, clarinet & alto saxophone; Clyde Rounds clarinet and tenor saxophone; Bud Freeman tenor saxophone; Dick Jones, piano; Carmen Mastren, guitar; Gene Traxler, bass; Dave Tough, drums.
The story:
One of the “facts” that has been handed down over the last eighty-plus years is that Bunny Berigan was a regular member of Tommy Dorsey’s band in late 1936 and into 1937. A careful review of all relevant information in the White materials and elsewhere indicates that this was not really true. He undoubtedly appeared with TD’s band on a number of its weekly NBC Raleigh-Kool radio programs which aired on Monday nights, and he most certainly made some records with Tommy’s band in January and February of 1937. But at the same time, he continued to appear weekly on the CBS radio show Saturday Night Swing Club, and was stepping up his commitment to his own very new big band during that same time period. Berigan, as usual, was a very busy man.
He also sat in for an unknown time, several nights perhaps, with Frank Trumbauer’s little band (The Three Ts) at the Hickory House on Fifty-second Street, probably as a favor to Trumbauer, after Jack and Charlie Teagarden, who had been the other two “Ts,” had to depart with Paul Whiteman’s band to tour. Frank Trumbauer recalled: “Jack and Charlie Teagarden left on January 15, 1937. I was lost without those two. A lot of the boys around town came over to help out. First, Johnny ‘Scat’ Davis, from Fred Waring’s band played a week, and then Bunny Berigan finished the month.”(1) Aircheck recordings from a night while Bunny was present with Trumbauer’s band do exist and are currently available on Sterling CD 1-15-07. The discographical information with that CD indicates that in fact Johnny Davis sat in for the January 8 broadcast, and Bunny for the January 15 broadcast. On the broadcast where Bunny plays, the announcer does not identify him, but repeatedly mentions the tag “The Three Ts.” I’m sure Jack and Charlie were there in spirit!
The first documented appearance by Bunny Berigan with Tommy Dorsey’s band occurred on Monday, December 28, 1936, on the NBC Raleigh-Kool radio show. The exact personnel of the TD band on that date, or on the January 4, 1937, show, is not known. Bunny’s presence is obvious from the trumpet solos on those two shows. However, when the Dorsey band recorded on January 7, 1937, for Victor, the personnel was known, and that personnel included three trumpet players, in addition to Berigan. Those three were Bob Cusumano (lead), Steve Lipkins, and Joe Bauer. My conclusion from this, and from listening to the recordings made that day, and indeed for the remaining TD-BB 1937 Victors, is that Bunny was present only to record solos. He certainly did not play first trumpet on any of the four sides recorded on January 7. His distinctive presence as a lead player in any trumpet section is easily identified, and I do not hear anything in the ensemble playing of this trumpet section that would allow the conclusion that he played lead with them. All available information indicates that Bob Cusumano, a very good New York studio trumpet player that TD used on occasion, played first trumpet on this recording session. Also, if Bunny was playing any other chair in the trumpet section, then why would Tommy have had three other trumpet players on this record date? The Dorsey band then had only three trumpets because the arrangements were written for three trumpets. If Bunny was to have played in the section, TD would certainly have told one of the three other trumpeters to stay home. They all showed up, I think, to play the regular three trumpet parts in Tommy’s arrangements. Bunny showed up to play solos. Guitarist Carmen Mastren, who was with the Dorsey band for several years in the late 1930s, and who helped out with arranging, was a member of Tommy’s band when these recordings were made. He told Herb Sanford, who wrote a book about the Dorsey brothers in the early 1970s: “The only thing Bunny did on that date (January 29, 1937) was play choruses on ‘Marie’ and ‘Song of India.’”(2) (Note: Steve Lipkins left the Dorsey band immediately after the January 19 recording session and was replaced by Jimmy Welch. After the January 29 Victor session, Andy Ferretti replaced Bob Cusumano on first trumpet. Ferretti was a much respected first trumpet man who would be in and out of TD’s band many times over the next three years.)
On January 11, the Dorsey band played Irving Berlin’s song “Marie”on the Raleigh-Kool program for the first time. Bunny’s solo on it was far less impressive than the one he would record a few weeks later on TD’s Victor recording.
On January 15, Tommy’s band opened an engagement at the Meadowbrook, a ballroom on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike, in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, about fifteen miles outside of New York, which would last until January 30. I doubt that Bunny would have played many/any nights of that engagement.(3) At that stage of his career, what would he have gained from playing another dance engagement with somebody else’s band?(4) However, he was with the Dorsey band on their radio show on the 18th, playing a slightly more provocative solo on “Marie.” (There is a link at (5) below that contains the January 18, 1937 recording of “Marie,” along with the classic Victor recording made a bit later.) He also appeared on the Raleigh-Kool show on January 25, taking a solo on the performance of “Limehouse Blues” that is presented with this post. And he did appear on the other Raleigh-Kool shows with the Dorsey band during this time, and at their January 19 and January 29 Victor recording sessions. These appearances made sense: he was a radio/recording musician, and a jazz soloist. Tommy used him in precisely that fashion. Others took care of the routine work in the trumpet section.
The music:
“Limehouse Blues” is a popular song written by the London-based duo of Douglas Furber (lyric) and Philip Braham (music). Evoking the Limehouse district, which in pre-World War II was considered the Chinatown of London. There are Chinese references in both the lyric and the melody. The song premiered in the 1921 West End revue A to Z, in which it was sung by Teddie Gerard in a wordless melodramatic number that presented Ms. Gerard as a hostess in a Limehouse dance-hall fronting a brothel. A piano rendition of “Limehouse Blues” was recorded for Ampico piano rolls by Ferde Grofe’ in June of 1922. An early recording of it was made by the Queen’s Dance Orchestra (with a young Jack Hylton on piano) on the HMV (Victor) label. Gertrude Lawrence performed “Limehouse Blues” when she made her 1924 Broadway debut in André Charlot’s Revue of 1924. It was a show-stopper and made her a Broadway star. After that, the song, much beloved by early jazz musicians, steadily rose to standard status in both the United States and Great Britain.(6)
The arrangement of “Limehouse Blues” presented with this post was written by Benny Carter. Many bands had it in their book of arrangements. A notable recording of that arrangement was made by Fletcher Henderson on September 11, 1934 on the Decca label. Bunny Berigan was familiar with the Carter arrangement, as he played it often when he was working with Benny Goodman’s band. A recording of him playing it with the Goodman band (from a January 5, 1935 NBC Let’s Dance radio broadcast) does exist. As one would expect of the ever-questing Berigan, his solo on the Goodman version is different from what he played on the Tommy Dorsey recording, which was made some two years later. (See note (7) below for links to those recordings.)
The version of the Carter arrangement played by the TD band on its January 15, 1937 radio show had been shortened to conform to the time constraints of that show, which in its early weeks featured more of the comedy schtick of Jack Pearl and less of the music of Tommy Dorsey’s band. Slowly through the late winter and early spring, that balance shifted, until Pearl was eased out of the show entirely. From July 2, 1937, Tommy Dorsey and his band headlined the NBC Raleigh-Kool radio show for the next two-plus years.
This performance is a marvelous snap-shot of what network radio in the mid-1930s could be like. Of course, what we hear in this recording went out live across the entire NBC radio network on January 25, 1937. Dave Tough cranks things up with his rattling drums as the band blasts its way into this joyous, brisk-tempo romp. The reeds and the brass dialogue in the first chorus. Berigan then takes matters into his own hands for a swinging jazz outing that has his usual big sound, big swing, and big excitement. He is followed by a rhythmic whirl of a solo from Bud Freeman on his tenor saxophone.
Then the last chorus begins with a couple of blunders in the trumpet section. Lead man Bob Cusumano tried manfully to keep things together, eventually settling the confusion. But Tommy had been firing trumpet players at an alarming rate in January of 1937, and the constant comings and goings had undoubtedly shaken the stability of the trumpet section. It is important to remember that Berigan was not a part of this small train-wreck. His job was only to play jazz solos: He did not play in the section. But again, what we hear is exactly what happened. This was live network radio.
The recording presented with this post required a good bit of audio restoration as a part of the digital remastering done by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and Links:
(1) White materials: January 14, 1937, citing the Trumbauer biography Tram, by Philip R. Evans and Larry F. Kinder, with William Trumbauer, Scarecrow Press (1994).
(2) Tommy and Jimmy: The Dorsey Years, by Herb Sanford, Arlington House (1972), 63. Herb Sanford was the director-producer of the Raleigh-Kool radio show on NBC radio, on which Tommy Dorsey’s band was featured in 1937–1939.
(3) We know for sure that Berigan was broadcasting with Frank Trumbauer from the Hickory House on January 15. (See text.)
(4) Moreover, the next name band scheduled to appear at the Meadowbrook was Bunny Berigan’s. I am quite sure that Arthur Michaud/Rockwell-O’Keefe would not have allowed Bunny to have appeared at the Meadowbrook as a sideman with Tommy Dorsey immediately before he appeared there as the leader of his own band. That would have undercut his value in that venue as the leader of his own band.
(5) Here is a link to the classic Victor recording of Tommy’ Dorsey’s recording of “Marie,” along with another recording of it by the TD band including Bunny Berigan, from a few weeks earlier: https://bunnyberiganmrtrumpet.com/2018/07/27/marie-1937-with-tommy-dorsey-evolution-of-a-masterpiece/
(6) The information on the tune “Limehouse Blues” was derived from the Wikipedia post on it.
(7) Here is a link to the Fletcher Henderson recording of Benny Carter’s arrangement on “Limehouse Blues,” which also includes an exciting performance of that tune/arrangement by Benny Goodman’s band, including Bunny Berigan, made a few months later: https://swingandbeyond.com/2024/02/23/limehouse-blues-1934-fletcher-henderson-with-red-allen-buster-bailey-keg-johnson-and-ben-webster-1935-benny-goodman-with-bunny-berigan-jack-lacey-and-arthur-rollini/
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