[Dixielandjazz] Nov. 2 - Anniversary of Bunny Berigan Birthday

[Julie Flemming]

Roland “Bunny” Bernard Berigan
 
November 2, 2012 – 104th Birthday Anniversary      Of
America’s Great Trumpet Player
 
      Roland “Bunny” Bernard Berigan was born on November 2, 1908, the second son of William P. and Mary (Schlitzberg) Berigan in Hilbert, Calumet County, Wisconsin, at 5:30 AM, with Dr. H. E. Luehrs M.D. in attendance.  He died in New York City on June 2, 1942 at the age of 33.
      His father worked for the railroad and was the Station Agent in Hilbert, but due to “Bunny’s health and encouragement from his mother-in-law, Bill Berigan moved his little family back to Fox Lake and continued to work in Hilbert for a time. All of “Bunny’s” extended family on both his mother’s side and his Dad’s side either lived in Fox Lake or on farms in the area.  “Bunny’s” family moved to Fox Lake in July of 1909 and lived at 524 State Street. When the eight month old  “Bunny” moved he was a very sick baby with whooping cough, but under his Grandma Schlitzberg’s good care and in the spacious house and shady yard, he began to improve.  It took a number of months to restore him to good health.
         “Bunny” was a great trumpet player as well as a fine violinist.  He  played in his Grandpa Schlitzberg’s Band as a kid and took lessons from the finest musicians in the Fox Lake/Beaver Dam, Wisconsin area.  He moved to Madison as a teenager and from there he made the leap to New York. In New York he had all the breaks that any musician could have had: featured spots with name bands, on the networks, his own band, recording contracts galore and movie work.  He actually led a fast-paced life, often playing in recording studios in the morning, playing live radio in the afternoon and perhaps playing with a popular orchestra in the evening.  His great love was popular music.
        “Bunny” first began to attract popular and critical attention in the Hal Kemp orchestra of 1930.  In a brief twelve years he recorded with more than 50 orchestras including those of Paul Whiteman, Rudy Vallee, Freddie Rich, the Dorsey Brothers, Frankie Trumbauer, Glenn Miller, Chick Bullock, Gene Kardos, and Red Norvo.  He really began to shine brightly in 1935 when he joined the Benny Goodman band. At that time he was a pretty solid, serious-looking fellow, a characteristic not at all reflected in his playing.  Red McKenzie once made a very pertinent remark about “Bunny’s” playing “If that man wasn’t such a gambler, everybody’d say he was the greatest that ever blew.  But the man’s got such nerve and likes his horn so much that he’ll go ahead and try stuff that nobody else’d ever think of trying.”  While with the Benny Goodman band “Bunny” recorded such pieces as King Porter Stomp, Blue Skies, Jingle
 Bells, Goodbye and Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.  Later as a member of the Tommy Dorsey band he recorded such memorable sides as Marie, Song of India, Melody in F and Spring Song. His superb trumpet was a dynamic factor in the rise to fame of both the Goodman and Dorsey bands.  He was a giant of the swing era and perhaps could even be credited with the introduction of that music to the world.
         In 1936 “Bunny” set out on his own, his band making its debut at New York’s Pennsylvania Hotel in April.  The Berigan star burst into full brilliance with the release of the monumental RCA Victor recording of I Can’t Get Started, an instantaneous hit and one that remains a classic today .
         “Bunny” struggled with alcoholism, as did many of the musicians of the era.  The pace was grueling with the strain of one-nighters.  Band members often ended a gig, traveled many miles all night in a car, ate  breakfast (or whatever meal they called it) at 2:00 AM, and continued to travel through the night to another town where they got ready to play another engagement for the evening.  It was not uncommon for “Bunny’s” band to play for days in a row with never a break. In the last few months of his life “Bunny” was really struggling.  He returned to the bandstand of his own band just days after a siege of pneumonia, but the pace and the strain and the alcohol were all too much.  By June of 1942 the last note had sounded and the music world was shedding tears.