Composed by Sammy Lerner (lyric) and Ben Oakland (music); arranged by Andy Phillips.
Recorded by Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra for Victor on March 15, 1939 in New York.(*)
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 and clarinet; Hank Saltman, alto saxophone; Larry Walsh and Don Lodice, tenor saxophones; Joe Bushkin, piano; Allan Reuss, guitar; Hank Wayland, bass; Eddie Jenkins, drums; Kathleen Lane, vocal.
(*) Leonard Joy was Victor’s producer for this recording session, which took place in Studio 2.
The story:
During the last week of 1938 and into early January 1939, Bunny Berigan was attempting to reconstruct his band after the departures of several key sidemen including tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld and drummer Buddy Rich, both of whom had joined Artie Shaw’s band. He finally found a drummer who satisfied him, twenty-one year old Eddie Jenkins. Jenkins joined the Berigan band in time for its January 19 engagement in Scranton, Pennsylvania. 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 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 the 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)
The band once again hit the road, playing a dance job at Carbondale Casino, Scranton, Pennsylvania on January 19. It was here that Bunny first encountered the young man who would become his most impressive male vocalist, Danny Richards:
“I was born Donato Ricciardi in 1919 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I began singing at age 14 around in Scranton night spots with a ‘rippling rhythm’ type band, Freddy Cariati’s orchestra. Later, circa 1937–38, I took over the band. I’d been singing with my own band in Scranton and I went down to the Casino, where Bunny’s band was playing. I got acquainted with Bunny and learned that Dick Wharton, his guitarist and vocalist, was on notice.” (3)
Richards would join the Berigan band a short time later.
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 the 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 Pennsylvania, where this wild goose chase had begun only the week before. Eddie 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 another 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. The band had no drum ‘book,’ to speak of. I took my cues from Hank Wayland’s hand until I became familiar with the arrangements.”(4)
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.” (5)
Bunny’s band at last had another theater engagement, at Shea’s Theater in Bradford, Pennsylvania, on the 25th, playing four shows. It was there that Danny Richards replaced Dick Wharton: Wharton remembered:
“I left the band on good terms at Bradford, Pennsylvania and joined Vincent Lopez. Betty Hutton was with him then and it seemed like a good move. Bunny was not much of a ‘stage personality,’ like Tommy Dorsey. He never ‘led’ much—he would start a tune and the rest of it was on the music. His teeth were very dark; he smoked cigarettes right down to the very end, yet he didn’t seem to worry about his teeth, as far as I could see.” (6)
Danny Richards added a few more details:
“I joined the band on this date, and my first experience was having to sit in Bob Jenney’s chair in the trombone section, and pretend to play! Bob had been hurt in an auto accident on the way to the job and wasn’t able to play, so I just moved the slide up and down as though I were playing the instrument. However, I didn’t have to pretend when Bunny called me out front to sing. The first number I sang with Bunny was ‘Change Partners.’ I’ll never forget the thrill.” (7)
After doing the four shows at Bradford, it was on the road again and back to Ontario, this time to Toronto and the Royal York Hotel for a single-night dance date. Eddie Jenkins had warm memories of that date: ‘“We played some memorable dates in Canada, where the people were all really marvelous and just couldn’t do enough for us. The Royal York Hotel was the venue for Toronto’s medical college ball. There was a Canadian customs officer who accompanied us to the job and then back to the U.S. border, to make sure we hadn’t sold any of our horns in Canada!” (8)
The newly constituted Berigan band now included the following personnel: Johnny Napton (lead), George Johnston, and Jake Koven, trumpets; Ray Conniff (lead and jazz) and Bob Jenney, trombones; Vic Hauprich, lead alto, Gus Bivona, jazz alto and clarinet; Don Lodice (jazz) and Larry Walsh, tenors; (Walsh doubled on baritone); Joe Bushkin, piano; Hank Wayland, bass; Eddie Jenkins, drums; Kathleen Lane and Danny Richards, vocals. The bulk of the band’s arrangements now came from Andy Phillips, with Ray Conniff contributing more and more jazz originals. Jerry Johnson (Ms. Lane’s husband), was the road manager. Bernie Mackey was no longer assisting Robert “Little Gate” Walker, the band’s equipment manager, but Little Gate had acquired another assistant.
This new lineup was different in a number of ways, the most important of which was that Bunny now had a three-man trumpet section, without his trumpet. One cannot imagine how taxing it must have been for Berigan to have played all of the solo trumpet in the band over the previous two years, and then to have played an enormous amount of lead trumpet in the brass section as well. Now he had the luxury to play the solos, which in this band was extremely demanding, and then play in the section only when he thought a little extra zing was needed there, but not always. The additional trumpet was initially financed by the temporary elimination of the guitar. Even though arranger Andy Phillips would occasionally appear with the band playing guitar, he was not in the band often. He usually remained in New York to supply the band with arrangements on current pop tunes.
Bunny’s band now had two excellent vocalists. Kathleen Lane had had experience before her stint with Berigan, mainly with Glenn Miller and Isham Jones. In addition to being a fine singer, she was an extremely attractive young woman with a great figure. She was equally adept presenting ballads and rhythm tunes. Danny Richards had no name band experience, but he was a very musicianly singer who sang on pitch, and had splendid vocal equipment, and good range. He sang the romantic ballads. Both of these singers were big assets to Bunny’s band in the early months of 1939. By February 1, the Berigan band had been completely reorganized, and upon returning to New York, could easily have recorded successfully for Victor. Nevertheless, no recording dates were forthcoming. Instead, one-nighters piled up: January 27, at the National Guard Armory in Oneida, New York; on the 28th, at the Valencia Ballroom, York, Pennsylvania; on the 29th, at Manhattan Center, New York City; the 30th, at Westchester County Center, White Plains, New York.
On Tuesday, January 31, 1939, the Berigan band opened at the Southland Cafe’ in Boston for a week’s engagement. Their appearance there was one of the first by a big band at that venue, which had previously been known as the Lido Venice. They were billeted at Boston’s number one musicians’ hotel, the Avery. Eddie Jenkins, the new kid in the band, discreetly recalled the Avery: “After another dreadful drive through blizzard conditions, we all checked in at the Avery Hotel in Boston. It was a well-known hangout for visiting musicians who were working in the area. Needless to say, there were plenty of stories about crazy goings-on there, and it became known among musicians as the ‘Ovary’ Hotel.” (9) It was at this time, according to Andy Phillips, that Joe Bushkin created quite a sensation by launching fireworks skyrockets from a bathtub in the Avery Hotel through an open window into the still of the Boston night at 4:00 a.m. Berigan himself was in Bushkin’s room with several other band members urging Joe to “shoot off one more,” when a visit from the house detective, and a threat of immediate eviction from the hotel, brought the pyrotechnic display to an end.
As we have seen, Massachusetts, like several other states then, had “blue laws” which prevented live entertainment on Sundays. So when Sunday, February 5 arrived, MCA made sure that the Berigan band had not forgotten the backbreaking rigors of the road: they booked Bunny and his boys for a one-nighter at the Mosque Ballroom in Newark, New Jersey, after which they had to return to Boston (a round trip of 450 miles) to finish their week at the Southland. Once again, Eddie Jenkins provided the background:
“We drove to Newark on Sunday, because the Southland in Boston was shut in accordance with Massachusetts’ so-called ‘blue laws,’ which prohibited such activities on Sundays. So, despite the distance and the inconvenience, which apparently meant nothing to the booking office, we had to make a quick round-trip to Newark. There was a consolation for me, however, when Mr. Avedis Zildjian, maker of the famous Zildjian cymbals, invited me to visit his factory, where I selected several new cymbals on the understanding that payment would be made through my New York retailer. But Mr. and Mrs. Zildjian came down to the Southland a couple of nights later and Bunny called me over to their table to be told that the cymbals were a gift!” (10)
The Berigan band’s stay at the Southland was extremely successful. In fact, they had broken all attendance records at that venue. (11) In the wake of Berigan’s success there, the Southland began booking other jazz-oriented big bands. It was at the Southland that Chick Webb played one of his last gigs. Soon, Count Basie and Duke Ellington would play there.
By this time, no matter how hard Bunny tried, no matter how well he and his band played, indeed, no matter how good business was where they played, it never seemed to be good enough. He simply could not keep ahead of his band’s overhead.
In spite of the fact that Bunny’s reorganized band was now playing very well (he had every reason to be quite happy with his new personnel), rumors, possibly started by MCA, began to circulate that he would soon rejoin Benny Goodman, replacing Harry James, who had just left Goodman to start his own band, that would operate under the management of Music Corporation of America. I wonder what Bunny thought when he started seeing or being informed about items like this in the trade press: “Rumored that Bunny Berigan may give up band and take Harry James’s place with Benny Goodman.” (11) Berigan had recently parted company with Arthur Michaud because of Michaud’s numerous conflicts of interest (usually involving Gene Krupa’s band), which had on more than one occasion placed him and his band in bad (and costly) positions. He undoubtedly realized that the same was true with MCA (which booked both Krupa and James), which seemed more and more to be relegating him to a minor league status. That was bad enough when Bunny’s in-house MCA competition was Gene Krupa. But Gene’s band was built around his drumming, so to some extent at least, the two bands were selling a slightly different swing product. Now, MCA was also using Harry James, whose hot trumpet calling card was the same as Bunny’s, to compete for the same gigs that the Berigan band had been getting in 1937 and 1938. There were only a finite number of good engagements for top grade big bands, and by 1939, those gigs were increasingly not going to Bunny Berigan.(11A)
Indeed, it seems that by early 1939, MCA had come to the conclusion that Berigan was now incapable of handling a lucrative one-week engagement at a major theater, playing four or five shows a day. They reasoned that if Bunny was drunk on a one-nighter, and either could not play well or at all, then the damage would be relatively small. At a theater, the financial risks to MCA would be much greater. This was extremely unfair because Berigan, obsessive about appearing at gigs on time, never missed a job because of drinking. Since Bunny no longer had a personal manager to advocate on his behalf with MCA, the agency simply booked his band as it saw fit. Consequently, Berigan and his band, no matter how good or bad, would henceforth be booked by MCA almost exclusively for one-nighters. In that way, MCA would continue to make money off of the band with relatively little risk for the agency. The inevitable adverse consequences that would flow from this business arrangement would fall squarely upon Berigan, and he probably understood this to some degree. Nevertheless, Bunny had repeatedly made it clear to his handlers at MCA that he was not going to give up his band. Bunny Berigan was a very stubborn/willful/tenacious person. So, MCA allowed him to play out the string with indifferent (at best) support from the agency. It is possible that by early 1939 MCA’s operatives were making book on how long it would take before Bunny and/or his band would implode. Berigan desperately needed a strong, aggressive personal manager at this critical juncture. The fact that he did not get one explains in large measure why he began going into debt at this time, while leading a musically excellent band, and playing brilliantly himself.
After the successful run at the Southland in Boston, the Berigan band was once again scheduled to play a string of one-night engagements throughout the eastern United States. Probably because of the cold and snowy weather, a date in Charlottesville, Virginia (February 9) was cancelled. On the 10th and 11th, Bunny played at Virginia Polytech Institute in Blacksburg, VA. Vic Hauprich, who had been playing lead alto, became ill, and subs were used until a permanent replacement could be found. I am of the opinion that at this time, Gus Bivona, who had been a member of the Berigan band for six months, took over the first alto chair, in addition to continuing to play jazz on both alto saxophone and clarinet. Shortly after this, Henry Saltman joined the band playing alto. He may have played first alto at times, but Bivona undoubtedly played first alto most of the time. (13)
The one-nighters continued: “February 12, Keith’s Ballroom, Baltimore; the 13th, Webster Hall, New York City; off on the 14th; the date at Berwick, Pennsylvania on the 15th, cancelled due to bad roads; 16th, Mealey’s Auditorium, Allentown, Pennsylvania.” (14) It was at this last gig that two men who would figure prominently in Bunny’s later bands would encounter him. George Quinty (lead alto saxophone with Berigan’s 1941-1942 band): “Don Palmer (who would become Bunny’s personal manager in July of 1941) and I drove up from Trenton to see Bunny on this date. Don was related to Don Lodice. I may have met Bunny very briefly at this time; I’m not sure.” (15)
The next night, the Berigan band played at the prep school in Andover, Massachusetts. And so it went.
Eddie Jenkins later recalled life on the road with the Berigan band during those weeks:
“On a night when the band was in rare form, Bunny would give most of the guys a chance to play a chorus and I think he often got more out of his men than maybe a strict disciplinarian like Glenn Miller might have. But it was in the realm of business organization that he took a beating. The agents exploited him to the full, as I’m sure did many of the ballroom operators. Since most of our dates were one-nighters, we barely had time to get checked into a hotel before we were leaving for the next job. So the only socializing would take place at a diner en route to the next engagement, usually in the small hours of the morning! Don Lodice and I often rode in the same car with road manager Jerry Johnson and his wife, singer Kitty Lane. We’d try to plug the cracks in the rear doors with old newspapers to keep out the cold drafts. We carried a portable phonograph balanced on our knees to lessen the vibration and listened to Count Basie records, especially ‘Blue and Sentimental’ with Herschel Evans’s fabulous tenor solo.” (16)
More one-nighters in New England followed until the band was informed that MCA had lined up a series of dates in the south, to commence on February 24, at Virginia Military Academy in Lexington, Virginia. This news was no doubt greeted by cheers of joy from the bedraggled and exhausted Berigan sidemen because it meant they would soon be leaving the frigid northern states and their ice-and-snow-covered roads, and heading into much warmer temperatures. From Virginia, the Berigan troupe headed further south, playing at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, on February 27–28; then to the Capitol Theater in Macon, Georgia on March 1 (from which they made one of their now rare radio broadcasts); the County Armory in Jacksonville, Florida on the 2nd; and at the University of Florida at Gainesville on the 3rd and 4th. On Sunday March 5, they arrived at Daytona Beach, and enjoyed a day off. According to Jenkins’s diary, some of the guys played golf and swam during the day, then went to nightclubs that evening.
On Monday, March 6, they played at the Pier Casino in Daytona Beach. Despite the backbreaking traveling and work the Berigan band was doing, there was still a good deal of hilarity, with Bunny contributing more than his share, often convulsing the sidemen with his humorous remarks delivered with an imitation of W. C. Fields. Gus Bivona was another clown, and he later recalled doing some “press agent” work for the band involving a lovely young lady reporter covering the Daytona Beach gig:
“That date was for the 5th Annual Junior Service League’s Ball and we were being pestered by a local gal reporter called Florence Pepper. Eventually, we got so fed up that we concocted a phony story that was 100% bullshit! We did it to get rid of her. Here is the story: ‘Bunny Berigan thinks jitterbugs are too noisy. The famed trumpet-leader likes sweet music and does some of his own arranging. Also arranging are Ray Conniff and Gus Bivona, members of the orchestra, and Joe Lippman, Andy Phillips and Jake Zarombie, New York arrangers. Berigan also composes numbers. His newest, yet to be published, is ‘Easy to Find and Hard to Lose.’ In collaboration with Bivona, he has written ‘Gus Bivona Blues.’ Bivona, a sax player in the orchestra, is a replica of William Powell (17) and plans to go to Hollywood to play a stand-in for the actor. An expert surfboard rider, he will be filmed in surfing sequences. Berigan’s wife and two infant daughters did not accompany him on this trip. They are vacationing in Canada.’ As Bivona was recounting this tale, he added: I’d never been on a surfboard in my life! I guess we really took that lady reporter for a ride! By the way, ‘Jake Zarombie’ was a name invented by Bunny, which he used as a gag or a brush-off, when somebody recognized him and he didn’t want to be disturbed.” (18)
At about this same time, Bunny’s real public relations department, probably an office boy at MCA’s New York office, produced a story that was designed to counteract the rumors that he would soon be disbanding. Here it is:
“Berigan’s going to join Goodman. That’s what the crowd was saying two months ago when Bunny let several of his men go. Others claimed Bunny was planning to organize a ‘chamber group’ and try something new in the way of swing trumpeting. But Bunny fooled us all. He went out and got new men and a new girl singer in the person of Kathleen Lane and now he’s back on the stand with a new band, which, in a few more weeks, Bunny and his men are convinced will be the best Berigan has ever assembled. The new combo includes 15 pieces: Gus Bivona, Vic Hauprich, Don Lodice and Larry Walsh, saxes; Bob Jenney and Ray Conniff, trombones; Johnny Napton, Jake Koven and George Johnston, trumpets; Hank Wayland, bass; Eddie Jenkins, drums; Andy Phillips, guitar; Joe Bushkin, piano; Miss Lane and Danny Richards, vocals and Joe Lippman and Andy Phillips, arrangers. Bunny, of course, makes it a 4-way trumpet section. Several factors point to the security of the band’s future. One is that it’s the most loyal gang Bunny’s had. Another is the presence of Wayland, Bushkin and Jenkins in the rhythm section. Wayland and Bushkin are proven men, but Jenkins, a youngster, is the man to watch. He’s young, but he is constantly improving and he plays good, solid drums. Don Lodice on tenor is about as good as Georgie Auld, but doesn’t have Georgie’s bite. Bivona’s clarineting is exciting and his alto work is excellent. ‘I’m tired of just making a living,’ Bunny said recently, ‘and I want the best band in the country.’ It looks as if he’s on his way.” (19)
The story was accompanied by a photo of Bunny and Bob Jenney, and is captioned “Berigan Fools All: New Band Despite Talk Is The Best Yet.” This was not just press-agent puffery: this edition of the Berigan band was quickly coming into its own as one of the more powerful and swinging bands on the scene in early 1939.
The gig in Daytona Beach received some press coverage: “Bunny Berigan’s torrid tunes proved conclusively his right to the title, ‘Hottest Man in Town.’ Sparkling gaily-colored lights and a high revolving rainbow-hued ball trembled as the blasts from Bunny’s trumpet reached the ceiling and bounced back to tickle the toes of the dancers attired in the smartest and loveliest of evening gowns. True to his word that he had the loudest band extant, Bunny was aided by the pier’s peculiarly amplifying acoustics.” (20)
The Berigan bandsmen were booked to play the following day in Columbus, Georgia, but before they drove there from Daytona Beach, MCA notified them that the gig had been cancelled. Saxophonist Larry Walsh recalled this incident: “Bunny never seemed to worry about anything. We had that date at Daytona Beach and we were supposed to go from there to the Royal Theater in Columbus, Georgia, but for some reason or other that job was canceled. Bunny didn’t seem to care, so we took a vote and decided to have another day at the beach and get some sun.” (21) This small holiday, like all off days, reduced Bunny’s income, while the expense side of the ledger, principally his sidemen’s salaries, kept accruing. Off days, among other things, were slowly putting Bunny in a deep hole financially. The band then moved to their next engagement at the City Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama, on March 8, followed by a gig at the Shrine Mosque in Atlanta, Georgia, on the 9th. Hank Wayland remembered that night well: “The place was packed to the doors when we arrived. Soon, nobody was dancing at all! They pulled their chairs across the dance floor and around the bandstand and we proceeded to play them a five-hour concert! The crowd acclaimed Bunny all the way for his outstanding playing that night.” (22)
The Berigan band’s southern tour was now about to end. They played on Friday–Saturday, March 10–11 at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, and then traveled back to New York. Hank Wayland recalled what was going on with the band’s personnel and schedule at that time: “Bunny phoned an old friend from Madison, Wisconsin, Doc DeHaven, to be prepared to join the band in New York, because Hank Saltman had tendered his two weeks notice. The band returned to New York that weekend and reassembled at the Jane Grey studios at 1:00 p.m. on the following Tuesday, March 14, to rehearse for a Victor recording date the next day.” (23)
In retrospect, we know that 1938 was the turning point in Bunny Berigan’s career and life. It was in 1938 that the business side of his career reached a plateau, and then began its decline. The waning of Berigan’s business operation was not precipitous, but it occurred somewhat ahead of the decline in his band, which happened as 1939 ended and 1940 began. In fact, Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra were a potent musical force throughout much of 1939. When Bunny and his musicians entered Victor’s New York recording studio on the Ides of March 1939, they were prepared to demonstrate just how well they were then playing. This session commenced at 1:30 p.m. and ran for five and a half hours, to 7:00 p.m. Six masters were made during that time.
The music:
This edition of Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra was powerful. It included three trumpets, two strong trombones and four saxophones, with one of the saxophonists, Larry Walsh, frequently giving the band more depth by playing baritone. The rhythm section included Joe Bushkin on piano, and Hank Wayland on bass. They had worked together for almost a year, and meshed well. The young drummer, Eddie Jenkins, was also fitting-in nicely. For this recording session, Bunny hired guitarist Allan Reuss, an old friend from when Bunny made the cross-country tour with Benny Goodman in the summer of 1935. By 1939, Reuss, a rhythm ace, was doing a lot of free-lancing in New York. Bunny himself was playing brilliantly, even by his own vaunted standards.
This arrangement, by Andy Phillips, utilizes all of the instrumental resources of the Berigan band, as well as the vocal resources of Kathleen Lane, a petite girl with a big voice that she definitely knew how to use well. Ms. Lane was an experienced singer, having started out in her native Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the territory band led by Freddie Shaffer. From there she went into Charlie Barnet’s band for a short time (May 1937), then joined Glenn Miller’s first band in the spring of 1937. She remained with Miller through the rest of 1937. As 1938 began, she joined Isham Jones, and remained with him until early November, when she joined Bunny Berigan, along with her husband, Jerry Johnson, who worked as Bunny’s road manager. As a result of her excellence as a singer and her attractive appearance, she quickly became one of the most popular performers in the Berigan band.
Here, the band comes on strong, with Gus Bivona on clarinet in the sonic mix, then Bunny, probably using a buzz-wow mute, taking the music from the introduction into the first chorus. He paraphrases the melody, backed by the four saxophones and the solid rhythm section on the main theme. The bridge has the two trombones, soon joined by the three trumpets swinging along. Mr. B returns. The various sections of the band play alternately and together to finish the chorus.
A short transition leads to the vocal chorus. Ms. Lane’s voice quality, sense of pitch and range are all excellent, and her sense of swing is undeniable. Behind her, the saxophones, muted brass, and some tasty piano accompaniment by Joe Bushkin, are perfectly complementary. Her upward register change at the end is very effective.
The reeds and brass then play call-and-response for a bit, then Berigan, now on open trumpet, covers the ensemble with his ultra-warm trumpet tone. Tenor saxophonist Don Lodice plays a fine swinging improvised solo with his big tone and nimble fingers much in evidence. Trombonist Ray Conniff plays next, albeit briefly, and he too sounds very good.
The finale spots the band playing with sovereign ease through the final measures.
The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
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 19, 1939.
(4) White materials: January 24, 1939.
(5) Information provided by Carl A. Hallstrom.
(6) White materials: January 25, 1939.
(7) Ibid.
(8) White materials: January 26, 1939.
(9) White materials: January 31, 1939.
(10) White materials: February 5, 1939.
(11) Variety: February 8, 1939, cited in the White materials.
(11A) Berigan fired Arthur Michaud as his manager in early January of 1939. Acting apparently without legal advice, he did not take steps to end their contractual relationship. Consequently, Michaud continued receiving commissions on every gig the Berigan band played, without doing anything to have secured those gigs or to manage Bunny. This started the process of undermining the business side of the Berigan band. Bunny made other wrong business moves in the first eight months of 1939 which compounded this situation. The culmination and partial resolution of this series of blunders was the bankruptcy filing Bunny initiated in late August 1939. That, in conjunction with various other legal machinations engineered by MCA, freed Berigan of Michaud, probably with a buy-out, but submerged Bunny in debt.
(12) Melody Maker: February 4, 1939, cited in the White materials.
(13) To my ears, it is Gus Bivona, who had a distinctive sound on alto saxophone, who plays most if not all of the first alto on Berigan’s March 15, 1939, Victor recording session. Gus Bivona himself later confirmed that starting in early 1939, he played all of the lead alto parts, as well as continuing to play the jazz clarinet and alto saxophone solos.
(14) White materials: February 16, 1939.
(15) Ibid.
(16) White materials: February 17, 1939.
(17) Gus Bivona also (later) very much resembled film actor David Niven.
(18) White materials: March 6, 1939.
(19) Down Beat: April 1939, cited in the White materials.
(20) Daytona News: March 7, 1939, cited in the White materials.
(21) White materials: March 7, 1939.
(22) White materials: March 9, 1939.
(23) White materials: March 11, 1939.
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