Bunny Berigan

Bunny Berigan's prominence spanned only eight years, from 1931 to 1939, with the opening stretch marked by swift ascent inside the industry and the later stretch defined by public stardom both as a featured sideman and as leader of his own ensemble. Between 1935 and 1939 he stood at the pinnacle among jazz trumpeters, his chief rivals being Louis Armstrong and Roy Eldridge. Even so, the brevity of his working life and his early death have not diminished his stature; six decades afterward, collectors in the twenty-first century still sought premium box sets devoted to his recordings. The enduring appeal rests on the caliber of his playing: a luminous tone, an expansive register in which his lowest notes proved as striking as his high-register exclamations, and an ability to electrify every date on which he appeared. Berigan embraced risk in his improvisations, sometimes courting recklessness, yet both his triumphs and his missteps retained vivid interest until alcohol ended his progress.

Roland Bernard Berigan entered the world in Hilbert, Wisconsin, in 1908 and displayed innate musical gifts from childhood. He began on trumpet at an early age and, by twelve, performed in a youth ensemble directed by his grandfather. During adolescence he moved through an assortment of regional groups and college orchestras. In 1928, at nineteen, he tried out for Hal Kemp and was turned away, reportedly because of an insufficiently robust tone; two years later he traveled with Kemp’s orchestra on its European tour and cut his earliest recorded solos. Upon returning to the United States that autumn he joined Fred Rich’s CBS studio orchestra, one of radio’s busiest house bands, whose personnel at times included Artie Shaw. Outside CBS commitments he undertook freelance dates across New York studios and sat in pit orchestras for Broadway productions. One such engagement, noted by Richard M. Sudhalter, placed him beside the Dorsey brothers and Jack Teagarden in Everybody’s Welcome, the show that first presented the Herman Hupfeld song “As Time Goes By,” later featured in Casablanca. Amid dozens of sessions that advanced both his skill and his reputation, he married and fathered two daughters while supplying distinctive solos behind numerous pop vocalists. Fred Rich’s orchestra remained his principal base until 1935, interrupted only by a late-1932 to early-1933 interval with Paul Whiteman and a brief 1934 period with Abe Lyman.

Berigan’s standing as a fiery jazz soloist grew through appearances on discs with studio aggregations, the Boswell Sisters, and the Dorsey Brothers; producers and leaders repeatedly sought him regardless of the front-line name or repertoire. In 1934 he made his sole screen appearance, performing with Fred Rich in the musical short Mirrors. Although 1935 still found him on dates with Red McKenzie’s band—later heard at the Famous Door—and with contract singers such as Chick Bullock, his most conspicuous work that year came during several months with Benny Goodman’s orchestra. Those months helped inaugurate the swing era: Berigan delivered memorable solos on Goodman’s initial hits “King Porter Stomp” and “Sometimes I’m Happy” and accompanied the band on its landmark western tour that culminated in the celebrated near-riot at the Palomar Ballroom. The same year he also participated in Glenn Miller’s first recording session as leader.

Berigan soon resumed the more profitable studio circuit, which encompassed further work with McKenzie and, in 1936, sessions with Billie Holiday produced by John Hammond. In 1937 he entered Tommy Dorsey’s ranks and contributed decisively to two major successes, “Marie” and “Song of India.” Even within Dorsey’s polished ensemble, Berigan’s solos on those sides remained the most memorable passages; Dorsey later had them transcribed for the full trumpet section. After departing Dorsey, Berigan organized his own orchestra and quickly scored with his signature hit “I Can’t Get Started,” a jazz standard that has been reissued repeatedly and has underscored scenes in films ranging from Martin Scorsese’s 1967 The Big Shave through John G. Avildsen’s 1973 Save the Tiger to Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. With Georgie Auld on tenor saxophone and Buddy Rich on drums, the band showed early promise; subsequent personnel included Joe Bushkin, Ray Conniff, Hank Wayland, Bob Jenney, and George Wettling. Yet Berigan’s alcoholism and disinclination for business matters undermined stability, and even regular broadcasts on CBS’s Saturday Night Swing Club could not guarantee longevity. Photographs from the close of the decade reveal a man in his late twenties who already appeared twice that age.

By 1939 mounting setbacks had accumulated; the following year, financially ruined, Berigan disbanded the group. He returned briefly to Tommy Dorsey but found the sideman role unsatisfying and continued drinking. A reconstituted orchestra failed to arrest declining health; despite medical warnings he maintained an unrelenting schedule and refused to abstain. On May 30, 1942, he collapsed and died two days later at age thirty-three. His passing, coinciding with the gradual decline of the swing era, prompts speculation about how this preeminent swing trumpeter might have navigated the subsequent bop period. Today his recordings, made largely with swing and dance orchestras from Fred Rich through Tommy Dorsey as well as with the Boswell Sisters, remain in circulation and are prized by jazz collectors, big-band enthusiasts, and devotees of the era’s popular music. In 2004 Mosaic Records released the seven-CD collection The Complete Brunswick, Parlophone and Vocalion Bunny Berigan Sessions, assembling more than 150 sides recorded between 1931 and 1935. The set’s enthusiastic reception among critics who seldom favor pop material underscores the lasting regard for Berigan’s playing more than six decades after his death.