Composed by W.C. Handy; arranger unknown.
Recorded live in performance by the CBS house band with Bunny Berigan as guest soloist on July 2, 1938 in New York.
(Broadcast emanated from CBS Radio Theater #2 – 251 West 45th – just east of Hotel Lincoln.)
Leith Stevens directing (possible personnel): Russ Case, Nat Natoli and Dave Wade, trumpets; Will Bradley, Jack Lacey and Earl Ison, trombones; Nuncio “Toots” Mondello, first alto saxophone; Pete Pumiglio, alto saxophone; Irving “Babe” Russin or Artie Manners and Hank Ross, tenor saxophones; Walter Gross, piano; Frank Worrell, guitar; Lou Shoobe, bass; Johnny Williams or Billy Gussack, drums.(1)
The story:
The summer of 1938 was supposed to be a time when the Bunny Berigan band, after a year and a half of development, would move into the top ranks of swing era bands. It happened in one sense, musically, the one that was of paramount importance to Bunny Berigan. But unfortunately, the business side of the band, after peaking in mid-summer, began to decline through the autumn of that year. A number of mishaps, known among swing era musicians as “hazards of the road,” most of them not of Bunny’s making, began to slowly undermine the financial stability of the band. Here is a summary of those misfortunes.
After a Victor recording session on June 8, 1938, Bunny led his musicians to Baltimore for a one-nighter on June 9, followed by an engagement the next day at the Windberry Forrest School for Boys, in Culpeper, Virginia. They were scheduled to play an afternoon “tea dance” followed in the evening by a regular dance. On the way to this gig, the band’s equipment truck containing all of its instruments and music, being driven by equipment manager Robert “Little Gate” Walker, skidded off a rain-soaked country road and into a ditch. In those days long before civil rights and cell phones, Little Gate, who was black, found himself in the unenviable position of being stranded in segregated rural Virginia. He had to call upon all of his resourcefulness simply to get the truck out of the ditch and on the road again, without coming to harm himself. While he was doing that, the Berigan band was forced to play the tea dance without its instruments. Drummer Johnny Blowers later recalled this incident to jazz historian Albert McCarthy:
“The band was due to play a tea-dance and an evening dance at a military academy in Virginia, but en route became parted from its instruments, when the truck, driven by band-boy ‘Little Gate,’ slithered into a ditch. For the tea-dance, a variety of instruments were exhumed from the academy band stock. Berigan fronted the band on a cornet with a fiber mouthpiece. Hank Wayland played tuba, and Johnny Blowers made do with a field drum and a huge bass drum, the latter ‘emitting a noise like a cannon every time I struck it!’ Blowers recalled. Fortunately, the errant ‘Little Gate’ arrived with the regular instruments in time for the evening dance.”(2)
The band forged on through a series of one-nighters in Pennsylvania and Ohio. They played at Moonlight Gardens, Meyer’s Lake Park, Canton, Ohio, on Thursday, June 16. Billboard reported on this engagement in its June 25, 1938, issue: ‘With Glen Gray the attraction less than twenty miles away at Summit Beach, Akron, Ohio, Bunny Berigan drew almost 1,000 dancers here last Thursday at Moonlight Gardens in Meyer’s Lake Park. Harry Sinclair, Moonlight Gardens manager, was pleased with the $460 take.”(3) (Multiply by 15 to get the value of dollars today.)
The next night, Bunny’s band was broadcast over WABC–New York, probably from somewhere in Pennsylvania. Johnny Blowers kept a diary of places he played with the Berigan band, but sometimes did not place a date with the location. Here are some of the venues the band played for the period June 17 to June 25: Tyrone, Pennsylvania (west of State College); Hershey, Pennsylvania, at Starlight Ballroom, Hershey Park, (15 miles east of Harrisburg); Shamokin, Pennsylvania, at Edgewood Park; on June 23, at the Crystal Ballroom, Cumberland, Maryland; Ithaca, New York, at Cornell University; Middletown State Armory, Kingston, New York, on Saturday, June 25; Greenwich, Connecticut. At some point in this eight-day span, a mix-up occurred involving a date at Old Orchard Beach, Maine.
Blowers recalled this venue in his biography Back Beats and Rim Shots—The Johnny Blowers Story: “Wherever we played the crowd loved the band, and there were hundreds of dancers, but we had a peculiar tendency to be in the wrong place, or in the right place at the wrong time. Even sometimes the wrong day. (This is hyperbole: the Berigan band almost always appeared where it was supposed to perform, on-time.) Once we went to Old Orchard Beach a day ahead of schedule, so we spent it enjoying rides and games. We played the following night. I really believe that band could have been very successful if more care had gone into planning and management.” (4)
The fact is that in the summer of 1938, the Berigan band was very successful. Its management (MCA, Berigan’s booking agency, and Arthur Michaud, his personal manager) however was by then focusing most of their attention elsewhere, primarily on the development of Gene Krupa’s new band. Engagements that otherwise might have gone to Berigan now were going to Krupa. As a result, there seemed to be no real plan as to how to achieve maximum financial return for the Berigan band on the road. Also, logistical slipups started to occur. These snafus have long been attributed to Bunny’s lackadaisical attitude about business matters. However, he was paying others to attend to these important issues, as all other bandleaders did, and had every reason to expect that they would be handled properly. Increasingly, they were not being handled properly. Consequently Bunny’s normally sanguine attitude sometimes turned edgy. He, not MCA or Michaud, had to pay the band while they enjoyed an unplanned off day, rode amusement rides, and played games at Old Orchard Beach.
In August, while the Berigan band was in the middle of a successful week at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, the incident that became legendary, Bunny falling off the stage and into the canvas-covered orchestra pit, occurred. This was definitely his fault, and a sad reminder that even though he was an alcoholic who functioned at an extremely high level, he was nevertheless subject to lapses. This one cost him dearly. Word of this incident spread quickly through the theater circuit on which his band was booked for lucrative week-long or split-week engagements. Theater operators quickly notified MCA that they didn’t want to take a chance on this happening in their theaters. Consequently, a major source of revenue for the Berigan band was shut-off, and the Bunny had to play more one-night dance dates, which involved more travel and travel expenses, and less revenue.
Then another blown gig occurred in early September, but this was not Bunny’s fault. Nevertheless, he took the full brunt of the loss of his fee for his band for what should have been a very lucrative gig, and then was sued by the venue operator for their loss of profits on the cancelled date. This was followed shortly by the Berigan band being blown out of a two-week engagement in Boston by the great hurricane of 1938. The band was laid off for several days after that, and during this time, Bunny broke his ankle. By October of 1938, the business side of the Berigan band was near insolvency, with only mediocre one-night dance gigs on their itinerary. The reversal of fortunes Bunny experienced from July 1 through October 1, 1938 had been precipitous.
The music:
Saturday July 2, 1938, 8:00 p.m., Manhattan. The CBS network radio network program Saturday Night Swing Club was on the air. Mel Allen was the announcer. The program, as usual, was packed with music. The CBS house band was led by Leith Stevens. The guests included: guitarists Bernard Addison and Teddy Bunn; Earl Bruno, a blind pianist; the great Fats Waller, …and Bunny Berigan. Berigan performed with the house band on the venerable W.C. Handy tune “Memphis Blues.” Based on aural evidence, Bunny played lead trumpet with the band, and took a stirring one-chorus jazz solo on “Memphis Blues.”
There has been some uncertainty over the years as to whether Berigan was actually present on this broadcast. My opinion is that he indeed was present, and played well. In addition, the CBS house band sounds very inspired in this performance, possibly because they were delighted to have their old colleague back with them, if only for one tune.
The quality of the arrangement they play is also first-rate. I wonder who wrote this chart. I could speculate about that, but I don’t think that would necessarily point us in the direction of historical accuracy. I will say however that the overall sound of the band reminds me very much of the ensemble sound of the Berigan band one year later.
This performance starts with a brief but robust introductory alto saxophone solo by one of the members of the CBS house band. At that time, Nuncio “Toots” Mondello was playing lead alto saxophone in that ensemble, but this soloist does not sound like him. It could be Pete Pumiglio however. The second half of the intro is played vigorously by the ensemble.
A brief saxophone soli sets up the first chorus, where those saxophones handle the melody exposition with panache, urged on by the muted brass. The next sequence has the trombones and the saxophones in a rhythmic round-robin.
After a brief drum roll, Berigan comes forward to play on open trumpet. This solo has many of his stylistic touches: first, its logical, almost mathematical construction. Bunny divides the solo into three four-bar parts, each one following its predecessor in a way that seems inevitable. Then there is his bright, full sound in all registers. Then there is the compelling swing that suffuses each note and phrase. Finally, there is the dramatic final sequence where he goes from his trumpet’s low register into its high register with utter ease and great expressiveness.
The ensemble then riffs a bit, saxophones against brass for a 12-bar chorus. The final chorus has the band divided into two choirs: the trombones, and saxophones and the Berigan-led trumpets.
This is a Berigan rarity that deserves to be heard and enjoyed.
The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes:
(1) Other musicians in the CBS “pool” who played on the Saturday Night Swing Club from time to time were: Andy Young, saxophones; Jimmy Rosselli and Willis Kelly, trumpets; Joe Vargas, trombone; Sammy Weiss, drums. Trumpeter Mannie Klein, who had been a stalwart on this show, had by late 1937 decamped to Hollywood, where he would begin a thirty-plus year career as a studio musician and music contractor. (This information comes in part from Bob Inman’s Swing Era Scrapbook, compiled by Ken Vail (2005), 250.
(2) This story was published originally in Big Band Jazz, by Albert McCarthy, G.P. Putnam’s Sons (1974), 208, and later appeared in Blowers, 38. Johnny Blowers kept a diary of dates he played while he was a member of the Berigan band. Much of the detail for the Berigan band’s tour in May and June 1938 comes from Blowers.
(3) Cited in the White materials: June 16, 1938.
(4) Blowers: 40.