Composed by Ernie Burnett; arranged by Andy Phillips.
Recorded live in performance by Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra at Westwood Symphony Gardens, Dearborn, Michigan on June 22, 1939.
Bunny Berigan, trumpet, directing: Johnny Napton, first trumpet; Jake Koven and Joe Bauer, trumpets; Jimmy Emmert and Bob Jenney, trombones; Arcuiso “Gus” Bivona, first alto saxophone; Charlie DiMaggio, alto saxophone; Don Lodice and Larry Walsh, tenor saxophones; Joe Bushkin, piano, Tommy Moore, guitar; Morty Stulmaker, bass; Paul Collins, drums.
The story – a tale of two bands:
Businesswise, it was during the spring and early summer of 1939 that Bunny Berigan’s band went from being one of the more successful bands on the swing scene, to being a panic band, where the sidemen didn’t know if the band would continue to be in business from week to week. This process had started late in the previous summer, when they were working very successfully at major theaters, and making a lot of money. All of that stopped rather suddenly after an incident when Bunny, having taken a few too many sips between shows at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, strode out from behind the curtains playing his theme song, “I Can’t Get Started with You,” and as he walked to the front of his band, stepped off the lip of the stage and fell into the orchestra pit. He wasn’t hurt as there was a taut canvas covering over the pit which broke his fall. Nevertheless, word of this fiasco quickly spread in the music business, and Music Corporation of America (MCA), Bunny’s booking agent, found that theater owners did not want to take any chances that Berigan might do something like that on their stages. Consequently, he and his band played no more theater engagements for a long time. This reduced the band’s income dramatically because theaters were where bands could make substantial amounts of money in a short period of time.
By 1938, Bunny’s drinking had reached a point where it veered between him having very little alcohol in a day, to having too much. No matter how much he had however, he was able to function, for the most part, without difficulty. Many Berigan sidemen reported that his behavior was largely unchanged by the amount he drank. Episodes like the one at the Stanley Theater were very rare. Unfortunately, that episode was such a tragicomic one that it took on a life of its own, and created a major negative impression with people in the music business about Bunny Berigan’s reliability as a bandleader.
Paradoxically, at this very same time, the band that Bunny had been building so carefully over the previous eighteen months was finally coming into full maturity as a jazz-based swing band. During the last six months of 1938, there were few if any bands then on the scene that could exceed the Berigan band when serious swinging was required. The band then included: the nonpareil drummer, Buddy Rich; the swinging and exuberant tenor saxophone soloist Georgie Auld; Joe Dixon and a bit later Gus Bivona on clarinet and alto saxophone; Ray Conniff on trombone (and, occasionally, arranging); Joe Bushkin on piano; and Bunny himself on trumpet. Berigan’s playing through 1938 and 1939 was at its technical and creative peak.
In addition to the Stanley Theater mishap described above, shortly after that, the Berigan band was literally blown out of a prime two-week engagement by the great hurricane of 1938 at the Boston Ritz-Carleton Hotel roof garden, which was to have included many coast-to-coast radio broadcasts. That created a major problem for Bunny in that his very expensive band had no work for several days, no radio exposure, and no income. By the time Berigan’s management team scrambled to secure other work for the band, Bunny was finding it difficult to pay his band members in full each week.
Last but far from least, Bunny and his personal manager Arthur Michaud were growing more antagonistic toward each other as 1938 wound down. From Bunny’s perspective, Michaud was not advocating as effectively in getting the best work possible for the Berigan band as Bunny thought he should. From Michaud’s perspective, he was by that time far more interested in working with his newest bandleader client, Gene Krupa, in the development of his band. Gene, in addition to being an excellent, crowd-pleasing drummer, was also an extremely photogenic man, and Hollywood was knocking on his door to appear in a feature film. By late 1938, Krupa’s possibilities as a bandleader looked more encouraging for Michaud than Berigan’s.
All of this led to a major argument between Berigan and Michaud at the end of 1938. Bunny, without seeking legal assistance, angrily terminated (or thought he terminated) his relationship with Michaud. What Bunny hadn’t considered was that he and Michaud had a contract, and Bunny’s actions did not constitute a legal termination of that contract. Consequently, through the first eight months of 1939 Michaud continued being paid commissions under his contract with Berigan, while doing nothing to manage the business side of Bunny’s band. This disastrous move by Berigan eventually led to him having to seek bankruptcy protection of some sort at the beginning of September 1939.
What Bunny Berigan did not know in late 1938, when he and his band were playing wonderfully well, was that no matter how great a band was musically during the swing era, unless it was also being operated well as a business, it could not survive very long. So as business problems began to engulf Berigan as 1938 ended and 1939 began, and many of the musicians in the Berigan band then began to sense trouble ahead, an exodus of his sidemen started. Those leaving then included Georgie Auld and Buddy Rich (both to soon emerge as stars with Artie Shaw’s fast-rising band), trumpeter Irving Goodman, saxophonist Clyde Rounds, bassist Hank Wayland, among others. Bunny, ever talented at finding new talents and solid journeymen musicians as replacements, filled the holes for the most part very successfully. Young musicians were thrilled to become a member of the Berigan band. They knew they would play exciting music with him, and learn a lot. His major new find was the exciting young tenor saxophonist Don Lodice.
As 1939 began, Berigan was in the process of rebuilding his band. He was also in the midst of a crisis in his family life. His wife Donna, who was caught in the swirl of events constantly buffeting her husband, had developed her own drinking problem. This resulted in additional strains in an already strained marital relationship. In the middle, as so often is the case, were Bunny and Donna’s children, Patty, who was seven years old, and Joyce, who was three. Their parents’ sporadic separations through the second half of 1938 continued into 1939. Donna wanted the excitement of being a part of Bunny’s career, which included her being with Bunny when he was traveling with his band. But that was impossible because of her responsibilities as a mother. When she was with her daughters, she was not the ideal mother. When she was with Bunny on the road, the girls were placed in the care of various baby-sitters. One of them did something to little Joyce (possibly excessive spanking) that verged perilously close to child abuse. So Bunny had to deal with that situation, which he did by imploring his parents to leave their home in Fox Lake, Wisconsin, and come to New York to act as baby-sitters for his daughters. They did this, and through the first months of 1939, the situation with the girls stabilized.
The musical part of Bunny’s band survived the rebuilding process quite well. After working through about two months of one-nighters with his new band members in early 1939, he felt that they were ready to record. Various scheduling conflicts had made that impossible before the middle of March. The recordings they made for Victor on March 15, 1939 are very good, and showcase a well-integrated ensemble and several good jazz soloists. Bunny himself was playing very well. That was the good news. The bad news was that Berigan’s contract with Victor terminated immediately after that recording session, and, without a personal manager to advocate on his behalf to renew it or to get another recording contract, no new recording contract was secured. This resulted in less income for the Berigan band, less income for Bunny, and no commercial recordings to document what was one of Bunny Berigan’s best bands.
By April of 1939, Bunny was paying a personal manager who rendered no services for him; paying commissions to MCA for the gigs they secured for his band; paying the salaries of a band of very expensive musicians; paying transportation costs to move his band around on the road (and they were traveling more, doing one-nighters); paying for new arrangements and copying services for them, among other costs. He was now in the place where most weeks, the band’s income did not exceed expenses. Dark clouds began to gather over the business operation of Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra.
The music:
This chestnut (composed in 1911-1912) has certainly been a standard over the last century plus, though it is often evoked as a somewhat corny, sentimental standard, probably because of its lyric. Veteran actor William Frawley (most well known for playing Fred Mertz on the classic television series from the 1950s I Love Lucy) stated that he was the first to sing the song in public while appearing at The Mozart Cafe’ in Denver, Colorado in 1912.) Jazz musicians have been consistently drawn to “My Melancholy Baby,” and their performances of it rarely have anything to do with cloying sentimentality. Benny Goodman (in 1938), Glenn Miller (in 1940), and Harry James (in 1941) were among the swing bandleaders who recorded it. This romp by Bunny Berigan and his 1939 band is anything but sentimental.
Berigan’s version of “My Melancholy Baby” starts without any introduction, but with a swinging full-chorus paraphrase of the melody played by Bunny. Notice that he uses what appears to have been a type of Harmon mute, something he did regularly in the years 1938-1939. He evidently liked the rasping sound that mute produced, as opposed to the more acrid, piercing sound of a straight mute, or the buzzing of a buzz mute. Arranger Andy Phillips left the background behind the first half of Berigan’s solo sparse, with just the rhythm section (Joe Bushkin’s piano is especially colorful in this sequence), but then warmed it with reeds and brass in the second half.
There is a brief, bright brass interlude that allows alto saxophonist Gus Bivona to play a few singing solo notes before he leads the Berigan saxophone quartet in robust fashion through a swinging set of soli, punctuated by very positive brass bursts, led by first trumpeter Johnny Napton. This format continues through the second chorus.
Another nice transition leads to a booting tenor saxophone jazz solo by Don Lodice. Arranger Phillips gives Lodice plenty of elbow-room in his first sixteen bars, with accompaniment again provided only by the excellent, swinging rhythm section of Joe Bushkin on piano, Tommy Moore on guitar, Morty Stulmaker on bass, and Paul Collins on drums. Collins, who looked like one’s favorite high school English literature teacher, proves in this performance that he definitely knew how to swing, and drive the Berigan band. The second sixteen bars of Lodice’s solo has the brass warming the background for Lodice.
Another brief interlude provides the springboard for Berigan to vault into his sixteen-bar jazz solo. How Bunny enters evokes images of a circus performer being shot out of a cannon. Here he starts his high register with an open horn that projects his mammoth sound. His first few notes are abstractions of Mendelssohn’s Spring Song, a melody he recorded with Tommy Dorsey in early 1937. From there on, he works his way down in register, and swaggers through what can aptly be described as a searing-hot improvisation.
The last half chorus has the band swinging away brightly.
A note about this recording, and a plea to collectors.
This recording is one of several live ones that captured Bunny Berigan and his band during the spring and summer of 1939 when they had no commercial recording contract. Many more exist, and are presumably in the hands of collectors. (See endnote (1) for a complete list of Berigan aircheck recordings made in 1939-1942.) As you can tell when listening to this aircheck of “My Melancholy Baby,” he and they were playing very well. Unfortunately, the few transfers I have that were made from the original acetate disks of these performances were made over forty years ago, and done without any effort made to reduce the surface noise or other sonic imperfections that are present in those unique source recordings.
I learned years ago from the great sound engineer Doug Pomeroy that the key to most effectively cleaning-up old recordings like these is to make the transfers to digital format using the original acetate disks, whenever that is possible. That opens up a host of possibilities that can be used in the transfer process to minimize surface noise using various tone arm stylii and other non-digital tools. Basically, the objective during the transfer process is to extract as much musical information as possible from those old disks, while extracting a minimum of noise. After that is done, then the digital tools now available can be used to reduce the remaining noise, distortions, and other extraneous sounds.
In the case of the recording presented with this post, I used various digital tools to reduce the huge amount of crackle in my copy of it, as much as that was possible, without degrading the fidelity of the music. I did what is like major plastic surgery on this recording to make it listenable. Even after that, regrettably, there is still a good amount of surface noise in this recording. The only way to get a better result soundwise is to work from the original, unique acetate disk on which this recording, and others like it, exist.
Off-the-air live recordings, also called airchecks, were made in two ways. The first was by a commercial sound studio using professional equipment; and the second was by individuals, using various grades of in-home sound recording equipment. The photo above is of a disk that would have been made by the Harry Smith Recording in New York. Harry Smith Recording was the first independent recording studio on the east coast of the United States, founded in the 1930s by Harry Smith. Smith’s real surname was Schmitt, and his nephew and godson, Al Schmitt, was a highly successful recording engineer in Hollywood from the 1950s through the 1980s. Harry Smith’s clients were radio personalities, radio stations, and radio performers, including bandleaders, who wanted to record their live radio performances so they could monitor the quality of them.
The second way airchecks were made was by using in-home recording equipment. This equipment varied in quality and in price, but it was capable of making excellent off-the-air recordings, oftentimes alas, with a good bit of extraneous noise in the recorded sound.
We are at a point where maximum effort must be exerted to find the elusive old acetate disks on which live recordings made by Bunny Berigan and his band in 1939 (and indeed in 1937 and 1938 also), get those unique and irreplaceable disks into the hands of a qualified sound engineer who can make the best possible digital transfers of them, and then clean them up using digital technology, and finally make them accessible for everyone who enjoys Bunny Berigan’s music. The disks can then be returned to their “owners.” I use the quotes because no one really owns these recordings. They simply possess them temporarily. The recordings belong to posterity, if we can find them, preserve them, and make them accessible. That is how we preserve and then study and understand history.
I have included at endnote (1) a link to a listing of aircheck recordings made by Bunny Berigan in the 1939-1942 time period.
Anyone who knows where acetate disks of live recordings by Bunny Berigan are can contact me at: mzirpolo@neo.rr.com. I will be happy to coordinate the process of preserving the music on those disks, and make sure that they are returned.
Notes and links:
(1) Here are a couple of links where you can see how aircheck recordings were made during the swing era:
(1) Here is a complete listing of Berigan aircheck recordings made in the years 1939-1942:
The following are recordings of broadcasts by Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra 1939-1942. The vast majority of these aircheck recordings have never ever been issued commercially. They need to be found, cleaned-up and made available for the public to listen to and enjoy.
Note: The aircheck recordings of “Hold Tight” (January 21, 1939), and “Old Man Mose” (January 28, 1939), which have been issued numerous times as being by Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra, are not recordings by the Berigan band, nor do they feature the solos of Bunny Berigan. They are probably from the Saturday Night Swing Club broadcasts made on those dates, and feature the CBS house band. I discern the distinctive first alto saxophone sound of Nuncio “Toots” Mondello on these recordings. He was a member of the CBS band at that time.
March 19, 1939—Hotel New Yorker, New York City; WABC–New York, 10:00 p.m.–11:30 p.m.: “Trees”; “I Have Eyes” (vocal Kathleen Lane); “Gangbusters’ Holiday”; “I Cried for You” (KL); “A Room with a View” (vocal Danny Richards); “Little Gate’s Special”; theme and closing.
Circa April 9, 1939—Trianon Ballroom, Cleveland, Ohio; WCLE–Cleveland, 11:00 p.m.–11:30 p.m.: “Familiar Moe”;* “Trees”; I Want My Share of Love” (KL); “This Night” (DR); “Black Bottom”; “I Cried for You” (KL); “Little Gate’s Special”; “I Can’t Forget You.” (*“Familiar Moe,”an original composition /arrangement by Ray Conniff, which is a clever concoction blending the riff tune “Time Out,” composed Edgar Battle and Eddie Durham, and arranged by Durham for the early Count Basie band, and the chords behind the trombone solo [played many times by Conniff] in Joe Lippman’s arrangement for the Berigan band on “A Study in Brown.” It is the antecedent for his marvelous study in chromaticism “Prelude in C Sharp Major,” which was recorded by Artie Shaw in December of 1940.)
Circa June 22, 1939—Westwood Symphony Gardens, Dearborn, Michigan; WWJ–Detroit, 12:00 midnight–12:30 a.m.: theme, with opening announcements; “My Melancholy Baby”; “I Can’t Get Started” (incomplete with announcements); “Sobbin’ Blues”; “Deep Purple” (DR); “The Lady’s in Love with You” (vocal Wendy Bishop); “Savoy Jump”; “‘Deed I Do”; “If You Ever Change Your Mind” (WB, incomplete); “Deep Purple” (DR); “‘Tain’t So Honey, ‘Tain’t So”; “Patty Cake, Patty Cake” (WB); “The Masquerade is Over” (DR).
June 25, 1939—Valley Dale Ballroom, Columbus, Ohio; WABC–New York, 12:00 midnight–12:30 a.m.: theme (incomplete); “St Louis Blues”; “That Sentimental Sandwich” (DR); “If You Ever Change Your Mind”; (vocal Ellen Kaye [Kayler]); “Little Gate’s Special”; “Deep Purple” (DR); “Patty Cake, Patty Cake” (EK); “Savoy Jump”; theme (incomplete).
July 11, 1939—Panther Room of Hotel Sherman, Chicago, Illinois; WMAQ – Chicago, 11:00 p.m.–11:30 p.m.: “Heaven Can Wait”; “The Lady’s in Love with You” (EK); “The Lamp Is Low” (DR).
July 21, 1939—Panther Room of Hotel Sherman, Chicago; WENR–Chicago, 11:00–11:30 p.m.: “St. Louis Blues”; “Azure”; “Our Love” (DR); “Savoy Jump”; “And the Angels Sing” (DR); “That Sentimental Sandwich” (DR); “Symphony in Riffs.”
July 23, 1939—Panther Room of Hotel Sherman, Chicago; WENR–Chicago, 11:00 p.m.–11:30 p.m.: “Perisphere Hop”; “The Day We Meet Again” (DR); “In The Middle of a Dream” (DR); “Moten Swing”; “Blue Evening” (DR); “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” (DR); “Especially for You”; “Trylon Trot.”
July 25, 1939—Panther Room of Hotel Sherman, Chicago; WENR–Chicago, 12:30 a.m.–1:00 a.m: “Shanghai Shuffle”; “White Sails”; “The Day We Meet Again” (DR); “There’ll Be Some Changes Made”; “I Poured My Heart into a Song” (DR); “Especially for You”; “Blue Evening; (DR); “Sugar Foot Stomp”; theme (incomplete).
July 27, 1939—Panther Room of Hotel Sherman, Chicago; WENR–Chicago, 11:00 p.m.–11:30 p.m.: “St. Louis Blues”; “The Lamp Is Low”; “My Heart Has Wings” (DR); “‘Deed I Do”; (vocal Bunny Berigan); “Jelly Roll Blues”; “Rendezvous Time in Paree” (DR); “White Sails”; “Devil’s Holiday”; theme (incomplete).
July 28, 1939—Panther Room of Hotel Sherman, Chicago; WENR–Chicago, 11:00 p.m.–11:30 p.m.: “‘Tain’t So Honey, ‘Tain’t So”; “Moon Love”; “I Poured My Heart into a Song” (DR); “Sobbin’ Blues”; “Azure”; “In the Middle of a Dream” (DR); “Especially for You”; theme (incomplete).
July 29, 1939—Panther Room of Hotel Sherman, Chicago; WENR–Chicago, 11:00 p.m.–11:30 p.m.: “Trylon Trot”; “Azure”; “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” (DR); “Shanghai Shuffle”; “The Lady’s in Love with You” (vocal Joe Bushkin); “Wacky Dust”; “The Day We Meet Again” (DR); theme (incomplete).
July 30, 1939—Panther Room of Hotel Sherman, Chicago; WENR–Chicago, 11:00 p.m.–11:30 p.m.: “Black Bottom”; “Especially for You”; “My Heart Has Wings” (DR); “I Can’t Get Started” (vocal Bunny Berigan); “The Lamp Is Low”; “Blue Evening” (DR); “The Wearin’ of the Green”; theme (incomplete).
The following titles were also recorded while the Berigan band was at Hotel Sherman in 1939. The dates are unknown; some may be from the above-cited broadcasts, some from other dates. “Livery Stable Blues”;* “‘Deed I Do”; “Savoy Jump”; “I Can’t Get Started” (vocal Berigan, incomplete, with announcements); “Sugar Foot Stomp”; “Panama”; “Easy to Blame the Weather” (DR); “Our Love”; “Jazz Me Blues”; and “The Prisoner’s Song.” Any of these titles that duplicate ones previously cited may be different performances of the same song. (*Berigan’s two chorus solo on “Livery Stable Blues” is magnificent. The first twelve bars have him playing in his middle and low registers, setting up what is to come. The second twelve bars, including room-shaking high notes, demonstrate a supreme level of virtuoso instrumental command and a musical imagination of almost frightening intensity.)
September 20, 1939—Totem Pole Ballroom, Norumbega Park, Auburndale, Massachusetts; WOR–New York, 8:00 p.m.–8:30 p.m.: theme (incomplete); “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” (DR); “Ay-Ay-Ay”; “Our Love” (DR); “Begin the Beguine”; “‘Deed I Do” (incomplete); “On the Alamo” (incomplete).
September 26, 1939—Manhattan Center, New York City; WNEW–New York, 8:00 p.m.–8:30 p.m.: theme (incomplete with announcements); “Ay-Ay-Ay”; “I Poured My Heart into a Song” (DR); “Caravan”; “Swingin’ and Jumpin’”; “Little Gate’s Special”; theme (incomplete with announcements).
October 16, 1939—Mardi Gras Casino, New York World’s Fair, New York City; WEEI–Boston, 11:30 p.m.–midnight: “Ay-Ay-Ay”; “My Heart Has Wings” (DR); “Caravan”; “Russian Lullaby”; “Begin the Beguine”; “I Poured My Heart into a Song” (DR); “Royal Garden Blues”; theme (incomplete).
October 23, 1939 – Southland Club, Boston; WJZ–Boston, 10:00 p.m.–10:30 p.m.: “Ay-Ay-Ay”; “Over the Rainbow: (vocal Kay Doyle); “Swingin’ and Jumpin’”; “What’s New?” (DR); “St. Louis Blues” (vocal Al Jennings); “The Jumpin’ Jive” (KD); “I Poured My Heart into a Song” (DR); theme (incomplete).
January 22, 1940—Marionette Room of Hotel Brunswick, Boston; WEEI–Boston, midnight–12:30 a.m.: “Peg O’ My Heart”; “Last Night” (DR); “Careless”; “Coquette”; “You’re a Lucky Guy”; “Azure”; “Faithful Forever” (DR); “‘Tain’t So Honey, ‘Tain’t So”; theme (incomplete).
January 24, 1940—Marionette Room of Hotel Brunswick, Boston; WEEI–Boston, midnight–12:30 a.m.: “In the Mood”; “After All” (DR); “Would Ya Mind?”; “Ay-Ay-Ay”; “Faithful Forever” (DR); “Jelly Roll Blues”; “The Prisoner’s Song”; theme (incomplete).
October 14, 1940—Dancing Campus, New York World’s Fair, New York City; WEAF or WJZ, time unknown: theme (with announcements); “Swingin’ on the Campus”; “Maybe” (DR); “Rum Boogie” (vocal Kathleen Lane); “There I Go” (DR); “Tuxedo Junction”; “A Million Dreams Ago” (KL); “Marcheta”; theme (incomplete).
January 19, 1941—Valley Dale Ballroom, Columbus. While the Berigan band played this engagement, someone made a few homemade recordings. They are: “Lover Come Back to Me”; an unknown ballad; “Swanee River”; “The Nearness of You” (DR).
April 22, 1941—Carnegie Hall, New York City. Bunny Berigan appeared without his band as a part of a large review entitled A Café Society Concert—Jazz and Classics. He played on “One O’Clock Jump” and “Blues.” The concert was not broadcast but some or all of it was recorded.
November 4, 1941—Possibly World Recording Studios, New York City. This is not an aircheck, but rather a promotional recording date, which was sponsored by Pepsi-Cola. The tunes recorded were jingles promoting Pepsi-Cola: “Pepsi- Cola Hits the Spot”; and “Get Hep with Pepsi-Cola.”
April 12, 1942 – Nu-Elms Ballroom, Youngstown, Ohio, time and station unknown: “I’m Confessin’.” This is the last known recording made by Bunny Berigan.
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