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Friday, November 19, 2010

A swingin' Bunny Berigan list......

Bunny Berigan


Rowland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan (November 2, 1908 – June 2, 1942) was an American jazz trumpeter who rose to fame during the swing era, but whose virtuosity and influence were shortened by a losing battle with alcoholism that ended in his early death at age 33. He composed the jazz instrumentals "Chicken and Waffles" and "Blues" in 1935. His 1937 classic jazz recording "I Can't Get Started" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1975.

Berigan was born in Hilbert, Wisconsin, the son of William Berigan and Mamie Schlitzberg, and raised in Fox Lake, Wisconsin. A musical child prodigy, having learned the violin and trumpet at an early age, Berigan played in local orchestras by his late teens before auditioning for the successful Hal Kemp orchestra in 1928 or 1929.

Kemp first spurned the young trumpeter, reputedly because Berigan at the time had an uncertain tone, but any deficiencies were apparently resolved a year and a half later: this time, in mid-1930, Kemp hired Berigan. Berigan's first recorded trumpet solos came with the Kemp orchestra, and he was with the unit when they toured England later in the year.

By the time the Kemp unit returned to the U.S. in 1931, Berigan, like fellow trumpeter Manny Klein, became a sought-after studio musician; Fred Rich, Freddy Martin and Ben Selvin were just some who sought his services for record dates. Berigan recorded his first vocal, "At Your Command", with Rich that year. From late 1932 through 1933, Berigan was also employed by Paul Whiteman, before playing with Abe Lyman's band in 1934.

He continued freelancing in the recording and radio studios, most notably with the Dorsey Brothers and on Glenn Miller's earliest recording date as a leader in 1935, playing on "Solo Hop". At the same time, however, Berigan made the association that graduated him to fame in his own right: he joined Benny Goodman's re-forming band. Legendary jazz talent scout and producer John Hammond, who also became Goodman's brother-in-law in due course, later wrote that he helped persuade Gene Krupa to re-join Goodman, with whom he'd had an earlier falling-out, by mentioning that Berigan, whom Krupa admired, was already committed to the new ensemble. With Berigan and Krupa both on-board, the Goodman band made the legendary, often disheartening tour that ended with their unexpectedly headline-making stand at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, the stand often credited with the "formal" launch of the swing era.

Berigan left Goodman to spend some time with Tommy Dorsey's orchestra; his solo on the Dorsey hit "Marie" became considered one of his signature performances. Then, in 1937, Berigan assembled a band to record under his name, picking the then-little known Ira Gershwin/Vernon Duke composition, "I Can't Get Started". Berigan's crisp trumpet work and passable vocal made the song the biggest hit of his career and his theme for the rest of his life. Berigan modeled his trumpet style in part on Louis Armstrong's style, and often acknowledged Armstrong as his own idol. Armstrong, for his part, returned the compliment after Berigan's death, saying the only thing wrong with Berigan was that he died too young.

Berigan got the itch to lead his own band full-time and did so for about three years. Some of their records were equal in standard to the sides he cut with Goodman and Dorsey, but they weren't financially successful and Berigan was known to fret over a business sense that wasn't quite equal to his musical talent. Bunny also began a torrid affair with singer Lee Wiley around this time. Already a heavy drinker, the business stress of bandleading drove Berigan to drink even more heavily. Nevertheless, musicians considered him an excellent bandleader; several notable players came into and out of the Berigan orchestra during its short life: Buddy Rich (a fellow Dorsey alumnus), Gus Bivona, Davie Tough, Danny Richards, Joe Bushkin, Ray Conniff, Ruth Bradley, Hank Wayland, Jack Sperling, Bama Warwick, Helen Ward, Sid Weiss, Morty Stuhlmaker, Hymie Shertzer, Bob Jenney, Al Jennings, Buddy Koss, Steve Lipkins, Kathleen Lane, Joe Dixon, Georgie Auld, Joe Lipman, George Wettling, Clyde Rounds, and Tommy Morgan.

Berigan was also a fixture on CBS Radio's Saturday Night Swing Club broadcasts from 1937 to 1940, a coast-to-coast broadcast that helped further popularize jazz as the swing era climbed to its peak.

Berigan's business troubles drove him to declare bankruptcy in 1940 and re-join Tommy Dorsey for a brief period before leaving to form a new small group to play mostly one-night stands. By this time, however, the touring grind became too much: during one such tour, Berigan was hospitalized with pneumonia in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But his doctors discovered worse news: Berigan by now was stricken with cirrhosis of the liver. His doctors advised him to stop drinking and to stop playing the trumpet for an undetermined length of time. Berigan couldn't do either. He returned to New York City and suffered a massive hemorrhage on May 30, 1942. He died two days later in the hospital at age 33. He was survived by his wife, Donna, and his two young daughters, Patricia and Joyce.   He was buried in St. Mary's Cemetery south of Fox Lake.

His 1937 recording of "I Can't Get Started" was used in the film Save the Tiger (1973), the Roman Polanski film Chinatown (1974), and a Martin Scorsese short film,The Big Shave (1967). Fox Lake, Wisconsin has kept his memory and influence alive with an annual Bunny Berigan Jazz Jubilee since the early 1970s. At least one of Berigan's Saturday Night Swing Club dates, a performance from Manhattan Center in New York on 26 September 1939, has survived to circulate among jazz and old-time radio collectors alike.




From: http://www.bigbandlibrary.com/bunnyberigan.html

(an interesting little article.................)

BUNNY BERIGAN
"'Cause You're So Supreme"

by Christopher Popa
December 2004


Though he died at an early age, Bunny Berigan left his mark, whether leading his own band or sparking someone else's.    
    "No one ever played like he played," Joe Aguanno, a trumpeter who worked with the Berigan outfit in 1939-40, told me.  "The sound was so rich and so soulful.  There's something that us trumpet players used to hear in Bunny.  When he would attack a certain note, it would sound . . . it makes you cry.  The sound that came out of Bunny's horn was just like the type of person he was.  He was such a fine, lovable guy... a big man, nice-looking." 

"I used to go see all of his performances when I was in New York," Aguanno reminisced.  "The Paramount Theatre, mostly, where he appeared with all the bands."
    But he didn't actually meet Bunny until he tried out for the Berigan crew around October 1939, just before it was to play the New York World's Fair.
    "I only actually met him when I auditioned for him," he said.  "Before that, naturally, I was a fan of his."
    Aguanno had been recommended by a friend and fellow trumpeter, Johnny Fallstitch, who, along with Bunny, Truman Quigley, and Carl Warwick, made up the Berigan trumpet section at that time.
    "I was practicing at my home in Brooklyn, New York at about 2:15 in the afternoon, I'll never forget that, and the phone rang and I answered the phone, "This is Joe."  He called me 'Joe Aguackamo,' and I said, 'No, Joe Aguanno.'  And he said, 'This is Bunny Berigan.'  And I said, 'Oh, hi ya Bun.'  I just said 'Bunny,' 'cause we in music talk that way.  And he said, 'I'm in need of a trumpet player tonight, to add to the band.  We're going to the World's Fair next week, for a week, and I want you to come in and sit in with the band.'"
    Aguanno was to replace Quigley.
    "I sat in with the band, cold, just sat in as a 3rd trumpet player," he recalled.  "We had Johnny Fallstitch on 1st and Carl Bama [sic], a Black young man, excellent 2nd trumpet, jazz, and myself on 3rd." 

"During the night, as we played at the World's Fair," Aguanno continued, "Bunny calls out for a tune to be played, where I had a solo in it, on the 3rd trumpet part, you know.  The tune was My Prayer.  Naturally, I'm in the section playing whatever Bunny's pulling out.  But then later, things were going pretty good, I guess, he called out a tune so that I could stand up and play 8 bars.  It was sort of a slow ballad-type, where he could hear my tone and phrasing or whatever, the roundness of the sound.  I was very happy to play it and from then on, I stayed on."
    What was it about I Can't Get Started that made everybody name it as one of their all-time favorites?    
    "Geez, I don't know," Aguanno said.  "I just know that it is and it was... in fact, I have a good friend of mine that recorded it just like Bunny's and his name is Rusty Dedrick.  I worked with Rusty for many years . . . When you say 'everybody' and I have to say everybody, from Doc Severinsen on down, or Wynton Marsalis, or whoever else.  In fact, they've recorded it with four trumpets and harmony.  I can't tell you why, but I don't think that there's a musician that doesn't love that theme song the way he plays it."
   Aguanno singled out Bunny's solo on I Cried for You, with Kathleen Lane's vocal, as another one of his best.
    "When he makes his entrance, just with one note, after she finishes a chorus, and then he just plays one note as his entrance, just one note [hums the note] and then he goes on . . . Just that one note and I got responses from that same feeling I'm trying to describe," he remarked.
    For Ken Hansen, who married one of Bunny's daughters, Joyce, in 1992, Berigan's finest recorded moment came as a player in Tommy Dorsey's band.
    "I think his solo on Marie was probably the greatest trumpet solo ever," Hansen asserted.  "Of course, he won a [posthumous Hall of Fame] Grammy award in 1975 . . . for his trumpet work on I Can't Get Started, but I really believe his solo on Marie was better, tremendously creative.  I know other Berigan fans would feel the same way."
    In general, Hansen thinks Bunny was at his peak as a sideman.
    "Oh yes, definitely.  I think his best work was in small groups, actually," he said.
    And the period as a member of Benny Goodman's band had its high points, too.
"His work with Goodman was just outstanding," Hansen agreed.  "You're probably familiar with the 'Bill Dodge' recordings.  I think that was exceptional work."
    Yet, Berigan’s work as a sideman during 1931 to 1936, when many would say that he was at his most potent, were largely neglected by jazz reissue labels, until Mosaic released 151 of them as a 7-CD set, "The Complete Brunswick, Parlophone and Vocalion Bunny Berigan Sessions," in 2003.  Happily, Mosaic made Bunny's daughter, Joyce, aware of the project.
     "Yeah, they interviewed Joyce by phone, briefly," Hansen confirmed.  "I don't even recall if they used her comments or attributed anything to her.  But they sent us a complimentary set of the CDs.  They were very thoughtful.  A lot of companies don't do that."
   "Incidentally, I was with the band on his last [Victor] recording date," Aguanno pointed out.  "That was Peg o'My Heart, and Ain't She Sweet, Juan Tizol's Night Song, and... what was the other one... Ay-Ay-Ay [hums the melody]."
    The recordings were made on November 28, 1939 and came out acceptably.
    "Well, he was, sort of, at a weak point, but they were still good," Aguanno said.

"I never knew Bunny and I never met him.  I was about 10 when he died," Hansen acknowledged.  "Of course, he was long gone from Wisconsin then, although he did get back to Fox Lake whenever he could. People do call me 'Bunny's
son-in-law,' but to me, that's just too awesome.  He was like a supernatural person to me."
    Nonetheless, it is Hansen's opinion that Berigan was not well-suited to be a boss.
    "Not very well at all," he said.  "Being a bandleader entails a lot of business acumen.  It requires business acumen, and he didn't have it."
   "I don't think so, no," Aguanno agreed.  "His manager, Ed Kirkeby, I believe the manager was at the time . . . was kind of a shyster guy.  I don't know what he was doing with payrolls and stuff like that."
    "He [Bunny] just really didn't care about money," Hansen continued.  "He cared about music and people."

"Oh, he was the most wonderful, kind guy," Aguanno said.  "I don't think Bunny would ever fire anybody.  He was too good to be a disciplinarian."
    Berigan assembled some great musicians to staff his own band, starting with the '37-'38 group, which included, at various times, trumpeter Steve Lipkins; trombonist Ray Conniff; saxophonists Joe Dixon, Georgie Auld, and Gus Bivona; and drummers George Wettling, Dave Tough, Johnny Blowers or Buddy Rich.
    "That was the problem," Aguanno claimed.  "The all-stars Bunny didn't control them, he used to just feature them."
    It really came down to Bunny himself.
    "His weakness was staying up late at night with the women, and drinking was his downfall," he commented.  "In fact, his dad used to travel with the band, when he got pretty bad... his father, Bill.  The old man couldn't stay up at night and Bunny would go out at 3 or 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock in the morning and his dad would be sleeping.  His dad just came on the road with us to try and keep his son on the straight-and-narrow."

Even though Bunny had a reputation as a drinker, he always remained a kind soul and decent person.
    "He would never hurt a fly," Aguanno stressed.  "He was too nice of a fella . . . He liked everybody."
    But those drinking habits began to affect his livelihood.
    "Bunny just drank and drank and drank a lot of whiskey and stuff," he recalled.  "But he always performed so great.  Sometimes, on his off nights, it wouldn't be that terrible.  Even some of his 'clinkers,' that we used to call, they sounded very good, too."
    Within a few years, work began to taper off.
    "I don't think there were many bookings," Aguanno confided, "and this Ed Kirkeby, I think, did him in, financially.  One of the last dates that we did, Bunny wanted to meet everybody in the hotel.  I was with Bunny when Bunny was in the hospital - I went to see him a couple of times, and he was all strung up and in bad shape.   Bunny wanted to see all of us in the hotel, when he got paid.  He had all the money, in cash, and the guys were in the hotel room.  Bunny came in, opened the door, and he threw all the money that he got from the people that paid him off, or the manager, and he threw all the money on the bed.  He says, 'Here it is, fellas.  Split it up, do whatever you want with it.'  It was a pitiful thing."

"I loved all bands, I loved all music," Aguanno reminisced.  "Sometimes when I get to talking with musicians I've worked with quite a bit, and I would say, 'Gee, I wish I had played with Benny's band, Benny Goodman... or I wish I had...'  And they all, every one of them that have played with big bands, they always tell me, 'But Joe, you were ... with Bunny Berigan.'  Every one of them!  There isn't a soul that wouldn't have wanted to work with Bunny Berigan, on the same bandstand with him.  That's why I feel very, very lucky that I was with him."
    Years later, Aguanno worked in the house band at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City.
    "My last professional engagement was the "Miss America Pageant" in 1963, with Glen Osser," he reported.
    Later on, he became a liquor salesman, but every now and then, plays for himself.
    "I've been blowing at home, just to play some melodies and stuff, just to fool around at home," he explained.
    Interestingly, Aguanno names as the highlight of his own career something which took place along the Adriatic Sea -not his work with Berigan or in the 'big apple.'
    "When I had to play taps when President Roosevelt died," he stated.  "I was with the 15th Air Force Band, the Flying Fortresses, in Italy.  All over the country, every base had a memorial service that day . . . it was thrilling."
    In 1973, a single-day celebration of Bunny's music was begun in Fox Lake, WI, and it's since blossomed into a several-day affair.
    "We call it 'The Bunny Berigan Jazz Jubilee,' or the Festival," Hansen said.  "But the official title is the B.B.J.J., 'The Bunny Berigan Jazz Jubilee.'  We've expanded it... Joyce and I, naturally, became involved in it in . . . 1996.  They couldn't find a band --at a reasonable price-- for 'The Bunny Berigan Day,' and they called me and asked me if I could help 'em find a band for under a thousand dollars, and I did."
    One of Bunny's relatives, Matt Berigan, posted to the Internet about that same time, "Well, I've gone to these on and off for a number of years 'cause dad [Bunny's cousin] and Grandpa [Bunny's uncle] have always enjoyed this music (my foot always starts a-tappin too).  It can be a pretty good party for jazz lovers.  I find it most interesting to sit in the old hall and watch quite a few old-timers tap their feet in unison and remember the music that was new when they were young.  I also am fascinated by all of the younger jazz fans and the ones that come from afar to this quiet little farm community to celebrate a man and his music that has been gone for so long."
    "They got very small crowds, and the Chamber of Commerce there just didn't want to do it anymore," Hansen said.  "When Joyce and I learned of that, we were just... it was quite a story, actually [chuckles].  We were just sick about it, and I went to the Chamber of Commerce meeting in Fox Lake and asked them, 'Please do it one more year because people just automatically come on the third Sunday in May -  that's when it was always held.  They don't need advertising or mailing, or anything, they just come... Bunny Berigan fans.  Three fellows in Michigan came every year, and even a fellow in Honduras, a Hispanic fellow, he came every year.  And I said, 'These people are gonna come and they won't even know it's been discontinued . . . We don't want any people to have ill feelings toward Fox Lake or toward Bunny Berigan.'"
    He was able to convince them.
    "Well, sort of," he remarked.  "They even voted on it again, in my prescence, while I was in the meeting room.  They voted to have it, but the President of the Chamber asked for an amendment that they would have to have a chairman [for the Festival] by Friday.  It was now Tuesday, and I thought, 'Well, that's a reasonable compromise.  Someone will chair this thing.'  I asked the President to call me on Saturday, to let me know what happened, and I didn't get a call, so on Monday, I called him and he said, 'No, no one volunteered.'  I was just sick about it.  It was the end of April, and the thing was supposed to happen the third Sunday in May.  So Joyce and I were at the Madison Jazz Festival; they have their festival [at] the end of April, about the fourth weekend.  And in walks our friend, Reverend Al Townsend, who had played one of the previous Bunny Berigan days . . . we knew Al just from the time he played there.  Anyway, he sat down with me and Joyce - he spotted us and sat down at our table and he lamented, along with us, that the thing wasn't gonna happen anymore.  Then, just a casual remark, 'When was that supposed to be?'  I said, 'The third Sunday in May.'  He said, 'Gosh, my band is playing at a church in Madison that day.  I'm doing a guest service at the church, and the band will play gospel-type music along with the service . . . We could swing by Fox Lake on our way back to LaCrosse, and do it.'  I said, 'Al, there's only a little over three weeks left.  We can't sell enough tickets and get publicity to pay you guys.'  He said, 'I don't care.  I'll play it for nothing, or I'll play it for two people, if only two people come.'  I said, 'No you won't.  I'm gonna pay you what you would get if you played a LaCrosse engagement,' assuming his travel expenses were already taken care of by the Madison church."
    Still, there was no chairman, so Hansen and his wife stepped in.
    "But we said we wanted money from the Chamber, to send out mailings, because we knew lots of jazz fans from other jazz events, who would come, if it were a two-day event," he went on.  "So we made it a two-day event, at the Community Center and the American Legion, and then, we eventually made it into a three-day event.  Now, it's actually four days, because we entertain friends and people who buy a $100 ticket, we entertain them on Thursday, here at our apartment complex, in the clubhouse, which is a very nice setting, at the poolside."
    Since then, Thompson has been a regular attraction, with his group now billed as 'The Bunny Berigan Memorial Band.'
    "We readily agreed to that," he pointed out.  "We wouldn't let just anybody use Bunny's name for profit, but Reverend Al has become a dear friend . . .  [he] plays quite a bit like Bunny
. . . His tone is so much like Bunny's.  He doesn't quite have all the technique... nobody does, or did, that Bunny had."
    In 1996, eight former members of Berigan's band, including Joe Aguanno, Joe Bushkin, Joe Dixon, Hank Freeman, Steve Lipkins, and Joe Lippman, were guests of the Hansens.
    "We had a, sort of, roundtable discussion by those musicians, that they talked about Bunny, each one with his own individual recollection," Hansen said.
    Meanwhile, the Jubilee continues to be held annually, with the next one in May 2005.
    "We are keeping it alive," Joyce vowed.
    They've also established a Bunny Berigan Foundation.
    "It's mainly to collect Bunny's music and to raise money to continue the festival honoring Bunny," Hansen explained.  "And it honors a student from the Fox Lake area... Dodge County, actually... who plans to continue somehow in the music field, at least has a lifelong interest in music.  We give 'em a $500 scholarship... the Foundation does."

Nowadays, back at home, Joyce [ pictured l., in 2002 ]  occasionally shares with her husband a memory of what her mother, Donna Berigan, had to say about Bunny.
    "Yes, I get little comments and, sometimes, a brief discussion.  She never goes into great lengths about it," Hansen answered.  "You're probably aware that her mother was a worse drinker than Bunny was.  She [Donna] just had a terrible life after Bunny died."
    Every so often, Bunny is the subject of an article in a jazz magazine or the focus of a compact disc collection.
    "He kept alive the music of those times," Joyce told me.  "His music is still being sold in the stores, and that's part of his legacy."
    "Well, it makes both of us feel very proud," her husband, Ken, related.  "Joyce, especially, because it is her father, but me too, because I've been a Bunny Berigan fan since as early as I can remember."
    Likewise, music remains a part of their household.
    "Actually, most nights Joyce goes to sleep listening to Bunny's music," he revealed.  "She puts a CD on, when she goes to bed."
    Perhaps some day in the future, a CD can be made of previously-unreleased Berigan material from Sony/BMG, now that the two companies in charge of Brunswick/Vocalion and Victor material, respectively, have merged.
    "Yes, that's possible," he said.  "You know, it's something I never thought of... and should have thought of."

    Berigan fans were saddened by the murder in 2004 of Bozy White, who spent decades researching Bunny's life and career, and was on the verge of seeing it published.  The status of the book, scheduled to have been printed in two volumes by White's own
so-called Shoestring Records, is unclear.
    "That's interesting," Hansen said.  "Bozy sent us a manuscript, a few chapters at a time . . . and we have that.  I don't know if a manuscript went to the printer or not.  Bozy had told us our manscript would be a backup copy."

    "I feel like I've had an insight into Bunny's persona," he observed. "I've heard so many anecdotal stories about him, that I feel like I almost know him.  I think he would like to be remembered as a good man, a good father, and a good musician.  I think, perhaps... you know, he was so modest about his musical achievements.  He'd come back to Fox Lake and get a bunch of local musicians and play in Casey's Tavern . . . on State Street."
    "Even at my age, I'm 87, I still get emotional when I think of how great a person he was," Aguanno admitted.  "The horn I still have and have played throughout my life, Bunny blew on it.  I can tell you just when he blew my horn.  We were playing at a place in New Jersey called the Mosque Ballroom.  The Mosque Ballroom had music around the clock, all day long, and they had three bands at the time: it was... let's see now...  Duke Ellington's band, Fats Waller's trio, and Bunny Berigan's band.  We used to have
45-minute sets, and we'd hang around all day at that Mosque Ballroom when Duke Ellington would be performing.  We'd have no place to go but hang around in that whole building.  We had our own rooms and stuff.  So one day while Ellington was playing, we went up to hear Fats Waller, in his room, with his trio.  They had a jam session, just playing upstairs, in the different hall . . . So then Bunny came by and he sat down to listen to Fats Waller's trio . . . Bunny happened to sit next to me . . . when Fats Waller finished one of his tunes, he turned around to Bunny and said, 'Hey, Bun . . . Get your horn and sit in with us.' . . . Bunny just touched his moustache once in a while with his fingers, and he said, 'No, man, I'll just sit and listen."  And Fats insisted, 'Bunny, get your horn!' and he says, 'I don't want to go upstairs and get it.'  Fats insisted that he get a horn, so Bunny turns to me, 'Aguackamo... anyway, he knew my room was across, with Buddy Koss and his piano or whatever, and I went to get my horn.  I handed it to Bunny, mouthpiece and all, and Bunny started to play the horn with Fats. And that's how I can say that."

"I think Bunny Berigan was a genius on that trumpet," Aguanno said.  "He could do anything he wanted . . . I don't hear anyone that has the soul in whatever he tried to do, whether he was way down in the low register and the second after that, he could be up to a high 'F' or a high 'E' on the trumpet.  And it sounds like it was no effort, but the way he sings it out, it just makes you cry.  I don't mean 'cry' cry, I'm just talking about if you have any ears that detect these things... Even if he should crack a note, it doesn't sound like a mistake!  It doesn't, because there's feeling there, someplace."
    "I would say it's just magnificent," Hansen elaborated.  "Almost like a gift from God... something very eternal, beautiful . . . It's so supreme that it's almost indescribable.  It touches my soul so deeply that I can't describe it."
   "Oh God, I have to go along with what Louis Armstrong said," Aguanno observed.  "Bunny is just a fearsome trumpet player.  He fears nothing, he does anything he can think of doing, and it just comes out.  There's no one that ever played like Bunny Berigan and they never will.  That's what Louis Armstrong said."


   


This list swings..........definitely swings....... :)




Can't help lovin' dat man
Chicken and waffles (B.B. and his Blue Boys) 
Frankie and Johnnie
I'm coming Virginia (B.B. and his Blue Boys) 
In a little Spanish town 1
(How to make love in) Ten easy lessons
Blues (B.B. and his Blue Boys) 
The gonna goo
High Society
Heigh-ho (The dwarf's march)
It's been so long (B. B. and his Boys) 
I'd rather lead a band (B. B. and his Boys)

Blue Lou
In a mist
Down stream
Gangbuster's holiday
I'm gonna kiss myself goodbye
Flashes
Big boy blue
Davenport blues
Dixieland shuffle
Father dear Father
I can't get started 1
Candlelights
Button button who's got the button?
In the dark
'Cause my baby says it's so
Gee, but it's great to meet a friend
I dance alone
I got it bad and that ain't good 1
I won't tell a soul I love you
Carelessly
Jazz me blues
All dark people are light on their feet
Have you ever been in heaven
I nearly let love go slipping through my fingers (B. B. and his Boys) 
I've got a guy
But definitely (B. B. and his Boys)

I cried for you
I'd love to play a love scene (opposite you)
If I had my way (B. B. and his Boys) 
'Deed I do
Azure
I want a new romance
The image of you
Ay ay ay
I'm happy darling darling with you
Ain't she sweet
It's the little things that count
All God's chillun got rhythm
In a little Spanish town 2
It all begins and ends with you (Frank Froeba & His Swing Band/Bunny Berigan) 
Billie's blues
Black bottom
Caravan
Dardanella
Did I remember
Flat foot floogie
I can't get started
I got it bad 2
In a little Spanish town 3
Honeysuckle Rose w/ Fats Waller 
In a little second hand store w/ Connee Boswell 
The first time I saw you w/ Ford Leary 
Ebb tide w/ Gail Reese 
Blue moon (Frankie Trumbauer Orchestra, Bunny Berigan) 
Always (Bunny Berigan/Nat Gonella and his Georgians) 
Bughouse (Bunny Berigan / Red Norvo / Teddy Wilson)





Pied piper
Russian lullaby
Mother goose
A sky of blue and you
Livery stable blues
Mahogany Hall stomp
Piano tuner man
Let 'er go
Sobbin' blues
A serenade to the stars
One in a million
Jelly roll blues
Let this be a warning to you
Let yourself go (B.B. and his Boys, Chick Bullock)

Outside of paradise
The prisoner's song
Lovelight in the starlight
A little bit later on (B.B. and his Boys)

Let's do it
Rinka Tinka Man
Simple and sweet
Rhythm saved the world
Little Gate's special
Never felt better, never had less
Rockin' rollers' jubilee
Patty Cake, patty cake
Mama, I wanna make rhythm
Moonshine over Kentucky
Peg O' my heart
Love is a merry go round
Round the old deserted farm
Skylark
Night song
My little cousin
Miles apart
Somebody else is taking my place
Somewhere with somebody else
A strange loneliness
Me and my Melinda
Organ grinder's swing (Bunny Berigan Frank Froeba & His Swing Band)

Rhythm lullaby (Bunny Berigan Frank Froeba & His Swing Band)

The lady from Fifth Avenue
Let's have another cigarette
No regrets (Artie Shaw/Bunny Berigan/Billie Holiday)

Nobody's sweetheart (Bill Dodge Orch./Bunny Berigan)

An old straw hat
Just to be in Caroline (Bunny Berigan Frank Froeba & His Swing Band)

Melody from the sky (B.B. and his Boys)

Roses in December  
Sophisticated swing



http://www.mediafire.com/?frqagqcg8tltfih


That foolish feeling
You took advantage of me (B.B. and his Blue Boys)

Tonight will live
Trees
When a prince of a fella meets a Cinderella
Who's afraid of love
Y' had it comin' to you
Turn on that red-hot heat (burn your blues away)
Swing Mr. Charlie (B.B. and his Boys)

Why doesn't somebody tell me these things
Why talk about love
Walkin' the dog
Sweet varsity Sue
You can't run away from love tonight
'Tain't nobody's business what I do (Frank Froeba & His Swing Band/ bunny berigan)

'Tis Autumn
Two in love
When I'm with you (B.B. and his Boys)

Whatcha gonna do when there ain't no swing (Frank Froeba & His Swing Band/ bunny berigan)

Swanee river
Wacky dust
Where in the world
There'll be some changes made
There's a brand new picture in my picture frame
The white cliffs of Dover
When I take my sugar to tea
Sugar w/ Lee Wiley



http://www.mediafire.com/?ks4fsepbc8tx8cc

9 comments:

  1. Great Stuff Thank you Remy29

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  2. You are amazing! Thank you!

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  3. BUNNY GALORE!!!!

    I have never heard much of Mr Berigan - thanks for providing such a broad sampler! :o)

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  4. His recordings of Bix material are marvelous.

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  5. Oh, how I wish these links worked. I'm on a Berigan kick and need more. Just finished a bio. Sigh. I appreciate your work, tho. Cheers.

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