Word: berigan
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Died. Bernard ("Bunny") Berigan, 33, veteran trumpet virtuoso, topnotch tooter of the jazz and swing eras; of an intestinal ailment aggravated by trumpeting; in Manhattan. He began as a boy musician, appeared with name bands when he was 18, soloed with Paul Whiteman, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, organized his own band...
...apart from music by real live people, I can recommend the soundtrack of "Syncopation" at the RKO Boston, which has the finest jazz recorded on it of any movie I can remember, including "Second Chorus" and every picture featuring a name band. It's encouraging to hear Bunny Berigan, who does nearly all of the trumpet work, in top form again...
...heard today: Their interpretations far surpass in vitality and harmonic interest anything the Andrews Sisters can do. Connic Boswell's arrangements have the jazz idiom down pat. "Everybody Loves My Baby" is perhaps the best of the sides, for it includes a great trumpet solo by Bunny Berigan as well as the rousing antics of the trio.... I also liked "There'll Be Some Changes Made," sung as a blues.... Someone asked me how to get to the Savoy Cafe to hear the Frankie Newton band. Take an Egleston car from Park Street, get off at West Newton Street, walk...
...Harvard Blues" has sold over a hundred copies at Briggs and Briggs. That means twenty-five cents for George Frazier. Basie's publicity department ran an ad in Variety calling it "the year's most publicized record"; I imagine they must read this column. . . . The explosive trumpet of Bunny Berigan was to be heard last night over the air from the Totem Pole, and it was the Bunny of five years ago at that. When sober, Berigan can apparently still play the most exciting improvisations, from the standpoint of tone, melodic ideas, or what you will, of any white...
...interesting to compare these records with the later performances by some of the players. Bunny Berigan, in particular, must be pretty envious when he listens to his work with Mildred Bailey, Bud Freeman's Windy City Five, and his own pickup band, playing with a power and assurance which he seems to have lost. Records like "Chicken Waffles" and "The Buzzard" show the way he played before he began to spend all his time groping about his shaky upper register for the edification of the assembled jitterbugs. All of which shows what years of constantly playing down to the crowd...