“I Want My Share of Love” (1939) with Kathleen Lane

Music and lyric by Saul Chaplin and Sammy Cahn; arranged by Andy Phillips.

Recorded live in performance by Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra at the Trianon Ballroom in Cleveland on April 9, 1939.

Bunny Berigan, trumpet, directing: Johnny Napton, first trumpet; Jake Koven and George Johnston, trumpets; Ray Conniff and Bob Jenney, trombones; Arcuiso “Gus” Bivona, first alto saxophone; Charlie DiMaggio, alto saxophone; Don Lodice, tenor saxophone; Larry Walsh, tenor and baritone saxophones; Joe Bushkin, piano; Tommy Moore, guitar; Morty Stulmaker, bass; Eddie Jenkins, drums. Kathleen Lane, vocal.

The story:

I had the good fortune to speak with drummer Eddie Jenkins not long before his death. The prime subject of our conversation was Bunny Berigan. I got a number of interesting tidbits from that conversation. Among other subjects, we discussed him joining the Berigan band.

Through early and mid-January 1939, Bunny was in the process of reconstructing his band. In the wake of the departure of drummer Buddy Rich and tenor saxophone soloist Georgie Auld to join Artie Shaw’s band, he finally found a drummer who satisfied him, twenty-one year old Eddie Jenkins, and an impressive tenor saxophone soloist, Don Lodice. Jenkins joined the Berigan band in time for its January 19 engagement in Scranton, Pennsylvania; Lodice had joined a few weeks before. It is through Jenkins’s journal, which was published originally in The Mississippi Rag (1) in February 1983, that we know much of the detail of what the Berigan band was doing over the next three months. Jenkins’s journal entries were cross-checked by the White researchers with contemporary press reports and found to be very accurate. Jenkins recalled the details of how he came to join Bunny’s band:

“A friend of mine called George Stacy was Bunny Berigan’s former road manager and he must have mentioned my name at some time, because I got a call asking me if I’d be interested in trying out for the band. Apparently, they were going on the road and their drummer, Phil Sillman, wanted to stay in New York. When I auditioned, it was only with the saxes as the others had been given a break to work over some new charts. We started and stopped several times, seldom playing anything from beginning to end. Vic Hauprich, an old friend of Bunny’s, had just joined on lead alto and there were one or two other drummers there. I didn’t really feel as though I’d been given much opportunity to do my stuff. However, a few days later, I got another call telling me to pack my bag and be at the Forrest Hotel on West Forty-ninth Street the next morning. I was there with bells on!”(2)

When I spoke with Jenkins, he remembered that when he appeared at the Forrest Hotel, Bunny asked him if he had a driver’s license. Eddie assured Bunny that he did, and Bunny told him to leave his drums and luggage in the lobby of the Forrest Hotel, where the band had gathered before getting into the cars that they were going to use on this trip. Jenkins’s equipment was taken by Robert “Little Gate” Walker, the Berigan band’s equipment manager, and loaded into the panel truck he drove to gigs. Also in that truck were Hank Wayland’s bass, the band’s music library and music stands and other accoutrement needed by the band on the road, including Bunny’s wardrobe trunk. Berigan then took Jenkins out onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel and showed him his car, which Eddie remembered as a big Buick. Bunny handed him the keys and said, “you will be driving my car to the first gig,” and then told him to start driving the car around the block “to get the feel of it.” After a few trips around the block, Kathleen Lane came out of the hotel, and flagged Jenkins down. She introduced herself and then went back into the hotel lobby to get the band’s road manager, her husband Jerry Johnson, and Don Lodice. They put their luggage into the car’s trunk and then got into the back seat. As soon as Bunny had shepherded all of the other sidemen into the small caravan of automobiles, and got Little Gate started on his way, he got into the passenger seat and told Jenkins to start driving. Soon, Bunny was asleep and Jerry Johnson fed directions to Jenkins from the back seat.

“I really didn’t know anyone in the band, and soon learned that there was no drum book. This made me extremely nervous as I had no idea how most of the arrangements went. Bunny was not concerned about this. He told me to ‘just play time until you become familiar with the arrangements,’ which I did. The band was very good, and Bunny of course was a tremendous trumpet player. I guess that I was a bit intimidated by all of this. Although I kept up with Bunny and the band, after each gig I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Bunny encouraged me. He said, ‘don’t worry kid, you play fine.'”

By this time, MCA’s one-nighter “dartboard” was being used to book the Berigan band. From Scranton, their caravan of automobiles headed north to Kingston, Ontario for a gig at Queens College on January 20th, then on to the Graystone Ballroom in Detroit for a dance on the 22nd. They were off on the 23rd, which was a Monday, then played a one-nighter at the Coliseum Ballroom in Lorain, Ohio on the 24th. From there, they returned to northern Pennsylvania, where this wild goose chase had begun only the week before. Jenkins recalled the trip from Lorain to Bradford, Pennsylvania:

“That was a bitterly cold night and after we’d finished the job, we set off for Bradford, Pennsylvania. During that long journey, we ran into a blizzard and one of the cars ran into another vehicle that had been abandoned in the snow. Bob Jenney and some other of the boys were injured and required medical attention. Our car, which carried manager Jerry Johnson, singer Kitty Lane, Don Lodice and me, had skidded and spun round in a circle at one point.” (3) 

The collision referred to by Eddie Jenkins, which occurred in Corry, Pennsylvania, was newsworthy enough to be reported in the Uniontown, Pennsylvania,  Morning Herald on January 27: “Suffering bruises and cuts were Ray Conniff, driver and trombone; Frederick Wayland, bass; Larry Walsh, sax; Joe Bushkin, piano; and Bob Jenney, trombone.” (4)

Basically, the tour the Berigan band was on from mid-January 1939 until the recording presented with this post was made some two and a half months later was of wide-ranging one-nighters and a few longer engagements. Those gigs were as far as Toronto, Ontario to the north, and Daytona Beach, Florida to the south. Musically, the band was good in January, and just kept getting better as they worked their way into early April together. Bunny was playing as well or better than ever.

Business-wise, this time marks the beginning of serious management problems for Berigan and his band. Bunny and his personal manager Arthur Michaud had come to an acrimonious parting as 1939 began for a number of reasons. Bunny’s perspective was that Michaud had been devoting less and less attention to the Berigan band as he (Michaud) worked through 1938 to build another of his clients, Gene Krupa, into a major attraction. Various costly mistakes were made by Michaud (and/or MCA), and Bunny took the hits bearing the financial losses alone. Also, the bad press and music business gossip that had circulated after Bunny fell off the stage of the Stanley Theater in August of 1938 had resulted in MCA refusing to provide any more major theater bookings to Berigan. Those week-long bookings involved a lot of hard work, but did not involve costly travel, and they paid very well. Bunny compounded these problems by not securing a legal termination of his contract with Michaud, and by operating his band without a personal manager. Consequently, on the income side, Bunny was not receiving any guidance and advocacy relative to securing the most lucrative work he could obtain, and on the cost side, he continued paying Michaud, who was rendering no services for him.

Berigan, with Michaud’s assistance, had secured a recording contract with Victor Records in March of 1937. That one-year contract was an important source of income and promotion for the Berigan band, and it was renewed in March of 1938. When the time to renew that contract arrived in March of 1939, Bunny, with no personal manager, was not able to renew it, nor was he able to sign with another record company. This situation resulted in yet another loss of income that Berigan could not afford.

Nevertheless, Bunny, the eternal optimist, continued to work with the band and forge them into an impressive performing unit. His primary focus was always on music. His attitude was that if he presented a good, swinging band to audiences, and played well himself, that would be enough for him and them to be successful. He was soon to discover that no matter how well he and his band played, without solid, aggressive management, he would soon be engulfed in debts, and his band’s continuing existence would be in jeopardy.

Still, there was a lot of good music made and a several memorable moments for Bunny and his bandsmen. They spent a bit of time in New York after the March 15 Victor recording session. On March 24, Bunny and the band opened at the Riviera (or Rivera) Theater in Brooklyn for four days. Presumably they were a part of a vaudeville review which included acts. That would explain the three-day rehearsal regimen immediately before this engagement. This theater engagement was not at a major venue, but it undoubtedly generated some much-needed cash for Bunny and his band, while keeping travel expenses down.

On Sunday, March 26, after completing their work at the Riviera/Rivera Theater, the Berigan band went to the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem to once again battle Erskine Hawkins’s band. (4A) These events were huge compensations for Bunny’s musicians, compensations that they could never have gotten playing with just about any other band. Young Eddie Jenkins remembered the thrilling experience years later: “The crowd at the Savoy really loved Bunny, and the band was given a tremendous reception. I remember that the band swung so hard that night that I played a hole right through my bass drum! That was the only time that ever happened!”(5)  

The Berigan band finished their stand at the Riviera/Rivera Theater the next day. It was at this time that the powerful bassist Hank Wayland, who had been with Bunny for almost two years, and had been a key component in the band’s swinging rhythm section, left. “The band was off the next week before Easter and I’d had a bit of an argument with Bunny, who was more than a little drunk at the time. Anyway, I quit and went home, but I soon got an offer from Larry Clinton, while Bunny got an old friend, Morty Stulmaker, to take my place.”(6)

Before the week off (without pay) began, Bunny announced to the band members that they would reform at the Trianon Ballroom in Cleveland on April 5. They would use that location as their base of operations throughout the month of April. Alto saxophonist Chuck DiMaggio replaced Doc DeHaven (who had replaced Vic Hauprich) during this interval. He recalled the situation when he joined Berigan: “The band was off for a few days and reassembled in Cleveland, Ohio, where I joined them on 3rd alto for a season at the Trianon Ballroom on Euclid Avenue. (Gus Bivona was moved into the first alto chair.) We were to play there on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, doing one-night stands on the other nights. I was born in New York City and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. Joe was my brother and died very young; he later worked with Bunny also.”(7)

When the Berigan band resumed operations in Cleveland on April 5, it was for rehearsals only for the first three days. On Saturday, April 8, they played at the Cleveland Hotel (8), the site a decade earlier of Bix Beiderbecke’s crack-up while he was on tour with Paul Whiteman. They opened at the Trianon Ballroom (formerly the Crystal Slipper) (8A), East 98th Street and Euclid Avenue, on April 9. (The Trianon Ballroom was razed many years ago. Where it was located (9802 Euclid) is now adjacent to the vast campus of the Cleveland Clinic.) (8A) The band broadcast over local Cleveland radio station WCLE on opening night, from 11:00 to 11:30 p.m., and this broadcast was recorded. Here are the tunes they played: ‘“Familiar Moe,” (composition/arrangement Conniff);(9) “Trees”; “I Want My Share of Love” (vocal, Kathleen Lane); “This Night” (vocal, Danny Richards); “Black Bottom”; “I Cried for You” (Lane); and “Little Gate’s Spe­cial.” The tune “I Can’t Forget You” was also recorded at some time during the Trianon stand, possibly earlier in the above-listed sequence. These recordings reveal that the band was in fine form, and that Bunny was playing very well.

The music:

“I Want My Share of Love” was a brand-new pop song in early 1939. The first recording of it was by Larry Clinton with a Bea Wain vocal on the Victor label on January 20, 1939. Nine days later, Artie Shaw recorded it on Bluebird with a Helen Forrest vocal. Other bands playing it then included Charlie Barnet’s, Jan Savitt’s and Glenn Miller’s. Bunny Berigan assigned the tune to his chief arranger in early 1939, Andy Phillips. The Phillips arrangement provides a straightforward but attractive showcase for vocalist Kathleen Lane and the open Berigan trumpet.

This performance reveals just how good this band was. The reeds are led throughout by Gus Bivona, on clarinet behind Ms. Lane, and then on alto saxophone in the second chorus behind Bunny’s trumpet. The brass are led in vigorous fashion by trumpeter Johnny Napton.

Kathleen Lane sings through the first chorus, demonstrating why she was one of the best vocalists of the swing era: She had an excellent sense of pitch, lovely voice quality in all registers, and projected with gentle swing. She was also very attractive in appearance.

The ensemble passage that follows Ms. Lane’s vocal is a good example of arranger Andy Phillips creating a dramatic musical transition/modulation into Bunny’s open trumpet solo. In fact, the last few bars of this sequence are played by Bunny before he paraphrases the main melody of this song for sixteen bars. Notice how Bunny explores the velvety low register of his horn in the first eight bars, then scales the heights in the second eight.

The next tract has the brass and reeds showing their dynamic unity and swing before Bunny returns for a soaring then descending/ascending brief solo at the end. This is the kind of thing his fans had come to expect from him.

Sonic restoration and digital remastering of the recording presented with this post was done by Mike Zirpolo.

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Notes and links:

(1) The Mississippi Rag was a monthly tabloid newspaper that specialized in news about classic jazz and ragtime. It’s founder, editor, publisher and guiding light was Leslie Carole Johnson, who kept the publication afloat for thirty-five years (1973–2008), until cancer made it impossible for her to work. Leslie Johnson died on January 17, 2009, at age sixty-six.

(2) White materials: January 17, 1939.

(3) White materials: January 24, 1939.

(4) Information provided by Carl A. Hallstrom.

(4A) The Berigan band had previously battled Erskine Hawkins and his band at the Savoy Ballroom on November 4, 1938. The consensus was that Berigan, and his strong soloists – Georgie Auld on tenor saxophone, Gus Bivona on alto saxophone and clarinet, Ray Conniff on trombone, and Buddy Rich on drums – had bested Hawkins on his home turf.

(5) White materials: March 26, 1939.

(6) White materials: March 27, 1939.

(7) White materials: March 28, 1939. Alto saxophonist Chuck DiMaggio’s recollection that he played third alto in the Berigan band is further evidence that Gus Bivona was now the band’s first alto player.

(8) This lovely hotel, located in the historic Terminal Tower complex in the center of Cleveland, continues to operate today as the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel.

(8A) The Crystal Slipper Ballroom at East 98th and Euclid. The Crystal Slipper, opened in 1924, had a dance floor to accommodate 4,000 persons. In 1934, its name was changed to The Trianon Ballroom, after the famous Trianon Ballroom in Chicago. Duke Ellington played here a a few occasions: August 4, 1932 , March 15, 1936, and November 25, 1938. This venue was different from the Bamboo Garden, which was located nearby on East 88th Street.

(9) “Familiar Moe” is an excellent jazz original composed and arranged by Ray Conniff. He started with parts of “Time Out” from the Count Basie band, then mixed in the chord changes behind the trombone solo in Joe Lippman’s arrangement for the Berigan band of “A Study in Brown,” to create this swinging framework for riffs by the band and numerous jazz solos.