A Jazz Conversation with Doug Ramsey [In Memoriam 1934-2026]

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

In the early days of developing content for my blog, a number of esteemed musicians, writers and critics came to my aid by consenting to be interviewed- among them - Ted Gioia, Gary Giddins, Bill Kirchner.

Doug Ramsey was the very first who volunteered to take the time to answer my questions so that I might prepare them as a formal interview for my readers. Once my blog was up-and-running, he would give me a plug on his own blog - Rifftides - if I was running something on my page that interested him.

When I called to thank him, he couldn't say enough nice things about my efforts. Needless to say, given the source, such encouragement meant the world to me.

Doug died in his sleep on May 19th at the age of 91.

I am reposting this interview in memoriam.

Douglas Arthur Ramsey 1934-2026 - Semper Fi, Marine.

I’ll try to keep this introduction brief so that my mumblings don’t detract too much from what follows.

Peter Keepnews succinctly stated: “Those of us who have tried writing about Jazz know what a daunting challenge it can be to do it well. Expressing an opinion about a given musician or recording is easy; explaining what exactly it is that makes that musician or recording worth caring about is not.”

Doug Ramsey has been brilliantly “explaining” the merits of the work of Jazz musicians and the qualities of Jazz recordings for over fifty years.

Doug’s writings about Jazz are so artfully done that opening an LP or a CD and finding that the descriptive notes have been written by him is the metaphoric equivalent of finding a real diamond at the bottom of a box of Crackerjacks.

Ray Avery once said of his colleague, William Claxton, that “some of us take photographs of Jazz musicians, but Bill is an artist.”

Those of us who write about Jazz feel the same way about Doug.

 How and when did music first come into your life?

I don’t remember it’s not being in my life. The first that I recall making music was as part of a chorus in, I think, the second grade. I took piano lessons, without notable success, from age 10 to 12 or so

 Did you play an instrument?

My next instrument, starting at 13, was the trumpet. To be more precise, it was a 12-dollar cornet that belonged to the junior high school band. Eventually, I saved enough from a paper route to buy a used Olds Special, an excellent horn that I still have but rarely play. Much later, Clark Terry got me a factory deal on a CT model Olds flugelhorn. For several years I’ve had the Bobby Shew Yamaha trumpet and the Shew model Yamaha flugelhorn. Lessons with Bobby during my L.A. years were invaluable. I’ve never stopped playing, despite many requests. The black and white picture shows me sitting in illegally at a club called the Crown Bar in the late 1950s when I was in the Marine Corps, stationed in Iwakuni, Japan.

The tenor player in the striped shirt is Sergeant Paul Elizondo, who went on to lead a big band famous in San Antonio, Texas, and become a popular Bexar County commissioner. The drummer was a corporal named, I think, Sears. The pianist and bassist had the gig at the club. Although the base at Iwakuni was headquarters of the First Marine Air Wing, my commanding officer was an Air Force colonel 450 miles north at Far East Network headquarters in Tokyo, an ideal arrangement. My job was to run the Iwakuni radio station of FEN, staffed by Marine, Army and Air Force enlisted men and a handful of Japanese civilian employees.

The commander of the air wing was Lt. General Carson Abel Roberts.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/caroberts.htm

One night when I was sitting in legally at the officers club on base, General Roberts introduced himself as a fellow player who as a youngster had known Bix Beiderbecke. On that thread, an unlikely friendship developed between the war hero three-star general and the greenish first lieutenant. If I had been under his command, that would have been unlikely. We were on a first-name basis; he called me Doug and I called him General. Sitting-in in town couldn’t have been too serious a violation of regulations; one night, General Roberts showed up at the Crown with his cornet and asked if he could play “Green Eyes,” which he did—a bit shakily but with the right changes.

It is my good fortune that there are outstanding musicians in my current hometown, Yakima, Washington, who allow me to play with them. We actually had a paying gig not long ago. Fifty bucks apiece. The way things are going, I know a few guys in L.A. and New York who would jump at that. World-class players come here frequently to play at The Seasons Performance Hall. A couple of Seasons Fall Festivals ago, Marvin Stamm invited me to play a duet with him. Actually, he informed me that I would play a duet with him. Bill Mays wrote a splendid arrangement of Freddie Hubbard’s “Up Jumped Spring” for trumpet, flugelhorn, violin, two cellos and rhythm section (Mays, Martin Wind and Matt Jorgensen). It was fun. No one in the audience threw anything.    

What are your earliest recollections of jazz?

My parents’ small collection of 78s was a mish-mash that included, among other things, records by Frankie Carle, the Andrews Sisters, Rafael Mendez, Eddy Arnold and Louis Armstrong. They had a record changer hooked up to the big Philco console radio in the living room. I played Mendez’s “La Virgen de la Macarena” a lot and wore Armstrong’s “Mahogany Hall Stomp” practically white. I’m not sure that I knew what Armstrong did was called jazz. I was perhaps 10 years old.

 Many conversations about jazz invariably turn to “impressions” and “favorites.” Why do you think this is the case?

As for favorites, most non-musicians and casual listeners develop them early on and maintain them as their standard for the rest of their lives. Here’s how Woody Herman put it when we talked following a dance job in San Antonio in 1974:

“Most of them stop listening as soon as they leave high school. That’s their last really firm connection with music. In that period of their lives, it’s all-important, and from the time of their first responsibility on, it becomes background to everything else, which is very natural and correct, I guess. But then they still want to tell me how the band isn’t making it now and it was so great then. And that really aggravates me. It’s about the only thing that does.”

One customer had asked that night for “Johnson Rag.” Another said to Woody, “Don’t you have any Russ Morgan pieces?”

“And they get some very terse replies,” Woody said, “like ‘No’ or ‘He quit the business’ or ‘I’ll play that when I get to the big band in the sky.’ It becomes a kind of standup routine. Certainly anyone has a right to ask for anything, but I can’t for the life of me think why I have to do those tunes.”

The quotes are from the Herman chapter in my book Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers.

Okay, so let’s turn to “impressions; who were the jazz musicians who first impressed you and why?”

Armstrong, of course. The next jazz player I’m conscious of admiring was Muggsy Spanier. He led in a curious way to Charlie Parker. When I was 15 or so, I was in a booth at Belmont Radio & Music in my hometown, Wenatchee, Washington, the Apple Capitol of the World and the Buckle of the Power Belt of the Northwest, listening to Spanier’s Commodore recording of “Sugar.” The son of the store’s owner was the tenor saxophonist Don Lanphere, who not long before had recorded “Stop,” “Go” and those other Prestige 78s with Fats Navarro, Al Haig, Tommy Potter and Max Roach. Don was home for a while, getting well and helping his dad. He opened the door, handed me a record with a yellow label and said, “Here, listen to this.” It was Parker on Dial; “Yardbird Suite” on one side, “Moose the Mooche” on the other. That introduction by Don affected my listening habits, expanded my horizons. At about the same time, I worked up the courage to introduce myself to the pianist Jack Brownlow, Wenatchee’s other great jazz musician, who helped Lanphere develop. I had heard him at high school dances and could sense, even in that context, that he was something special. He asked if I was a musician and invited me to his house to play. It was a disaster. I knew nothing about improvising and proved it. Still, he took me on, gave me ear training, played me recordings of all the right people and explained what they were doing. Among other revelations, he made me aware that Nat Cole was a great pianist—and why. Those listening lessons went beyond jazz. At Jack’s house I first heard Stravinsky, Villa Lobos and Shostakovich. One indelible evening at Lanphere’s, Don introduced me to the Boston Symphony/Charles Munch recording of Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloe.” I could go on and on about what I owe Jack and Don. They developed the musical portion of my brain.

Staying with your impressions for a while, what comes to mind when I mention the following jazz musicians?

Louis Armstrong.

I’ve been listening to him for more than six decades. I’m hearing new things and rediscovering things that astound me. I recently put up on Rifftides his “Summertime” from the Porgy and Bess album with Ella Fitzgerald. His expression of the melody of that song is an apotheosis of pure music. His introduction to “West End Blues,” which I have heard 4,372 times, still devastates me. When Dizzy said, “No him, no me,” he wasn’t kidding. I’ll take it further; no Armstrong, no jazz as we know it.

Du Duke Ellington

A A magician. An alchemist. There’s a story that some of the most gifted Hollywood film composers were asked to listen to several complex pieces of music and analyze the chords. They nailed them, down to the last e-minor half-diminished 13th with a 9th on top (I made that up). There was an exception, the Ellington example. These composers with ears like sonar could not agree on what the harmonies were made of. Duke kept his band together through low-key leadership and management that are studied in business schools, and—no small matter—through the proceeds of his song royalties. With the indispensable help of Billy Strayhorn, he made his orchestra and its members extensions of himself.  They, in turn, helped to shape him. It is not possible to imagine outside the crucible of Ellington’s band, for example, the Johnny Hodges everyone knows, or Ellington without the inspiration and challenge of writing for his great individualists, Hodges, Cootie Williams, Ben Webster, Harry Carney, Rex Stewart, Paul Gonsalves and all the others.

Dizzy Gillespie

Bird called him “the other half of my heartbeat,” but to a large extent Dizzy was also the brain of the bebop movement. For him, teaching was a calling. James Moody, Jimmy Heath, Ray Brown, Mike Longo and countless others have recounted Dizzy’s patiently giving them insights into harmonies and structures central to the music. On the heart side of the equation, he was the embodiment of rhythm in all of its power, simplicity and complexity. He recognized the catalytic importance of Chano Pozo, and Afro-Cuban jazz became a part of the jazz mainstream. Let’s see, there must be something else. Oh, yes, he was the most gifted and influential trumpet soloist of his generation and a few generations since. No him, no Fats Navarro, Kenny Dorham, Conte Candoli, Miles Davis, Art Farmer, Idrees Sulieman, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Brian Lynch, Ryan Kisor. Feel free to complete the list. It may take a while. When you have time, listen to his solo on “Night in Tunisia” (RCA Victor, 1946). All of those guys did.

In 1962, I was working at KYW-TV in Cleveland, before those call letters moved to Philadelphia. Dizzy was the guest host for a week on The Mike Douglas Show, which was produced at KYW. He had the quintet with Moody, the 19-year-old Kenny Barron, Chris White and Rudy Collins. On the show, they played “Chega de Saudade,” the first time I had heard a bossa nova played with that intensity. They were playing that week at the Theatrical Restaurant downtown on Short Mary (I love that street name; had to work it in.) One night after the gig, Dizzy and I got to talking and he invited me to his hotel room to continue the conversation. We shared a bottle of red wine, had a serious discussion about music, acted silly and developed a warm acquaintance that lasted until he died.  

Stan Kenton

He had a great ear for emergent talent among players and arrangers and a dedication to massive sound. The two qualities often conflicted but, as in the Contemporary Concepts period, at their best his bands produced stimulating music of great importance. Kenton was a better pianist than he is generally given credit for, and some of his arrangements from the 1940s and 50s are superb.   

 Shorty Rogers

 He was a brilliant arranger and composer who synthesized the spirit of the big band era and the innovations of the Birth of the Cool band into a highly personal style. Those early 1950s Giants recordings with Art Pepper, Hampton Hawes, Shelly Manne and all hold up as well as anything from the period, regardless of coastal origin. His work on the East Coast-West Coast Scene album he shared with Al Cohn, particularly “Elaine’s Lullaby,” is masterly. Rogers’ trumpet and flugelhorn playing was idiosyncratic, beguiling. His Atlantic and Pacific Jazz quintet albums are classics. “Martians Go Home” should have won a special award for economy and humor in the use of “Rhythm” changes.

Gerry Mulligan

His writing made the Kenton band swing regardless of its leader’s inclination. His charts for his own big band were brilliant, but he stretched himself so thin that he didn’t do enough writing for it. His pianoless quartet had a brief existence but is inspiring musicians more than half a century later. Mulligan was the baritone saxophonist who could sit in—and fit in—with anyone. His sextet with Bob Brookmeyer, Art Farmer, Jim Hall and Bill Crow was a great band, and Night Lights is a masterpiece. He was restless in his curiosity and search for knowledge. He was a stimulating dinner companion. I miss him a great deal.

Horace Silver

I’ll refer to what I wrote not long ago on Rifftides about putting on the Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers album as background music to begin the day.

I chose it because I wanted something that had solos I could sing, hum and whistle along with as I fixed breakfast. Every note of Horace Silver’s second Blue Note album, the first by the Jazz Messengers, has been embedded in my brain since shortly after it was released in 1955. My record collection then consisted of 10 or 12 LPs. This was one of them. I played it so often that Silver’s, Kenny Dorham’s and Hank Mobley’s solos and Art Blakey’s drum choruses became part of my mind’s musical furniture. Silver, Blakey and bassist Doug Watkins comprised a rhythm section that was the standard for what came to be called, for better or for worse, hard bop. Dorham and Mobley, with their deep knowledge of chord-based improvisation, constructed some of their most memorable solos. Silver’s compositions—and one by Mobley—are classics.

Horace’s own bands that followed—with Art Farmer, Clifford Jordan, Blue Mitchell, Junior Cook, Joe Henderson, the Brecker Brothers and Ryan Kisor, among others—comprise an important chapter in the history of the music. I am sorry to hear that he has been ailing.

Miles Davis-Gil Evans collaborations

Recently I contributed an historical essay to Bob Belden’s pending Miles Español project (http://vimeo.com/14698280). Working on it brought home again that the pervasive influence of the Davis-Evans Sketches of Spain has reached virtually all precincts of music, as Belden’s video and CD show. From his arrangements for the Birth of the Cool band through Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain and Quiet Nights, Gil’s understanding of Miles’ temperament, inclinations and leanings made it a perfect partnership. I wish that it had lasted longer, but what they gave us will endure.   

Mel Tormé

 A great singer. He sometimes went overboard in the melisma department, but his intonation, swing, diction and lyric interpretation were flawless. His collaborations with the Marty Paich Dek-tette, particularly Mel Torme Swings Shubert Alley, and his duets with George Shearing belong in the vocal hall of fame. Is there a vocal hall of fame?

Maria Schneider

 She learned—absorbed—from Gil Evans and Bob Brookmeyer and developed a recognizable style. Now, she herself is an influence. Like most category-based criticism, assessments that she has gone beyond or outside jazz are meaningless. Forget labels; she writes wonderful music. If you’ve ever watched her work in front of her big band, you know that she is an inspiring leader. Sky Blue was terrific. I look forward to her next album.

What made you decide to become a jazz writer?

I’m not sure that I decided. It happened. In the eighth grade, a teacher told me that I should be a reporter. I considered law and architecture, but ultimately majored in journalism. The junior year at the University of Washington School of Journalism was total immersion in the newspaper process. We put out a daily paper. Music was one of the beats the editors handed me. I wrote frequently about jazz. I’ve never stopped, although three years in the Marine Corps slowed my output. My career has been in newspapers, broadcast news as an anchor, correspondent and news director; then as an educator of professional journalists. I have had a parallel career or sub-career as a writer about jazz and free press issues and as a novelist; one novel so far.

Is there a form of writing about jazz that you prefer: insert notes, articles, books …?

 No.

If you could write a next book about jazz on any subject, what or who would be the focus of such a book?

 I’m working on a book that will be, essentially, a collection of liner notes, which, done right, is a form of journalism. I’ve written a few hundred sets of notes. Some of them hold up.

You’ve accomplished many wonderful things in your life both personally and professionally. Why is it that jazz has continued to play a role in your life?

 Because it goes to the core of what I value: individuality, freedom of expression, human interaction, beauty.

Switching to the subject of “favorites:”

Why must we have favorites? Why not evaluate every book, film, composition, solo, or painting on its merits, without ranking it? For that matter, why must we have favorite musicians, actors or newscasters? (Gene Lees ‘ unisex term for them was “anchorthings.” Boy, do I miss him). That thought leads to popularity contests or, as the magazines call them, readers polls and critics polls. If publicity about winning poll results in more work, record sales and income for deserving musicians, perhaps polls are worth something, but I don’t trust them much; I get too many e-mail messages from musicians and their publicists pleading for votes. I have voted in many critics polls, but I’ve become increasingly skeptical of them.

I’ve come to dislike the very word “favorite,” but I can’t come up with a suitable synonym.

What are some of your favorites books about jazz?

There you go again. All of Whitney Balliett’s books, all of Martin Williams’, Gene Lees’ and Nat Hentoff’s. Gunther Schuller’s Early Jazz and The Swing Era. I’ve been waiting for years—make that decades—to Schuller’s book on bebop. Both of Louis Armstrong’s autobiographies. Dan Morgenstern, Ira Gitler, Gary Giddins, Andre Hodeir, Ted Gioia, Stanley Dance, Joachim Berendt, Francis Davis, Albert Murray, Larry Kart, Royal Stokes, Stafford Chamberlain, Jeroen de Valk, Ashley Kahn, Bill Crow’s books of anecdotes, Mike Zwerin. Wait a minute, this is a trap, you know. Sure as the devil, I’m leaving out 10 or 15 valuable writers about jazz.   

 What are some of your favorite jazz recordings?

Talk about traps! I’ll name 10, with the understanding that I could name 50 or 100. If you asked me tomorrow, it could be 10 others. Not in rank order:

Bill Evans: Portrait in Jazz

Duke Ellington: And His Mother Called Him Bill

Louis Armstrong: The Hot Fives and Hot Sevens

John Coltrane: Blue Trane

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Jazz at College of the Pacific, Vol. 2

The Sarah Vaughan 1950 Columbia’s with George Treadwell and his All Stars: Miles Davis, Benny Green, Budd Johnson, Tony Scott, Jimmy Jones, Freddie Green (or Mundell Lowe) and Billy Taylor.

The Curtis Counce Quintet albums on Contemporary, with Harold Land, Jack Sheldon, Carl Perkins and Frank Butler

“Flamingo” from Charles Mingus’s Tijuana Moods, with its perfect Clarence Shaw trumpet solo

Chick Corea, Now He Speaks, Now He Sobs

Ravel, Daphnis and Chloe (Munch, Boston Symphony)

You’ll notice that there is nothing recent on that list. Maybe it takes favorites a few years to develop.

Who are your favorite big band arrangers?

 (Not in order) Eddie Sauter, Fletcher Henderson, Bill Holman, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Gil Evans, Mike Abene, Jim Knapp, Frank Foster, Bob Brookmeyer, Darcy James Argue, Don Redman, Duke Pearson, Gerry Mulligan, Maria Schneider, Benny Carter, Ralph Burns, Slide Hampton, Bill Kirchner, Quincy Jones, Johnny Mandel, Sy Oliver, Gerald Wilson, Melba Liston, Neil Hefti, Oliver Nelson. This could go on a while. May I stop now?

Who are your favorite Jazz vocalists?

Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day, Carmen McRae, Jimmy Rushing, Helen Merrill, Nat Cole, Carol Sloane, Bill Henderson, Peggy Lee, Joe Williams, Ray Charles, Jack Teagarden, Teddi King, the young Ethel Waters, Mark Murphy, Meredith d’Ambrosio, Karrin Allyson, Fats Waller, Nancy Marano, Jeri Southern, Jimmy Rowles, Mildred Bailey, Chet Baker, Rebecca Kilgore, Johnny Hartman, Carol Fredette, John Pizzarelli, Nancy King, Daryl Sherman, Mel Tormé, Maxine Sullivan, Ray Nance, Blossom Dearie; Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. That’s the short list.

Who among current jazz musicians do you enjoy listening to?

An incomplete list: Ambrose Akinmusire, Bill Charlap, Steve Wilson, Kirk Knuffke, Bill Mays, Sonny Rollins, Diana Krall, Kenny Barron, Miguel Zenón, Jessica Williams, Wadada Leo Smith, Ed Partyka, Branford Marsalis-Joey Calderazzo duo, Gretchen Parlato, Matthew Shipp, Matt Wilson, J.D. Allen, Alexander String Quartet, Dubravka Tomsic and everybody on Bob Belden’s Miles Español project.  

 Of all your writings about jazz over the years, which ones are you most proud of?

 Recently, the notes for the MJQ Mosaic box and that Miles Español piece, but overall, probably the Desmond biography and the non-jazz novel Poodie James, because so much of my blood, sweat and being went into them.

What are you thoughts about blogs and websites devoted to jazz?

 It is clear that there are no rules for blogging. My conviction is that the standards of accuracy, fairness, thoroughness and reliability that go into any responsible writing must apply to blogging. Opinion should be plainly identified as opinion, if only by context and usage. The medium offers wide possibilities for sound, photographs, video, even a certain degree of interactivity. Many jazz blogs just sit there looking like pages out of an academic journal or a thesis.    

If you could host a fictional “jazz dinner,” who would you invite, and why?

 Good conversationalists. Most jazz musicians are good conversationalists.

If you could put on an imaginary three-day jazz festival in Yakima, WA, how would you structure it and who would you invite to perform?

 Fortunately for Yakima, it has The Seasons Performance Hall, which in addition to its regular schedule has a week-long festival in the fall. The festival has included James Moody, Jessica Williams, Bill Charlap, the Brubeck Brothers Quartet, Tom Harrell, Ernestine Anderson, Tierney Sutton, Marvin Stamm, Karrin Allyson, Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, Eric Alexander, David Fathead Newman and the Bill Mays Trio with Martin Wind and Matt Wilson. The Seasons Fall Festival also incorporates classical elements. Maintaining quality hasn’t been easy because of the economic morass we’re in, and in recent regular bookings The Seasons has resorted to lesser music in an attempt to pay the bills, a familiar story in the arts these days. As a pro bono adviser to this nonprofit hall, I advise them to hang in there and aim for the standard of quality implied in that list of names. As for structure, The Seasons Fall Festival has always been linear. It does not put artists in competition with one another, a la Montreal, New Orleans and other festivals that have morphed into huge parties. You wonder how much they have to do with music.

If you were asked to host a television show entitled – The Subject is Jazz –  who would you like to interview on the first few episodes?

Sorry, Steve, Gilbert Seldes and WNBC-TV took that title half a century ago. We’ll have to choose another. How about The Steve Cerra Show? I would ask Sonny Rollins, George Wein, Branford Marsalis, Bill Mays, Dave Brubeck, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Miguel Zenón, Benny Golson, Marian McPartland, Cedar Walton, Gerald Clayton, Darcy James Argue and Matthew Shipp. That’s the first 13 weeks. Do you think we’ll be renewed?

 What writing projects about jazz have you recently finished? Are there any that you are currently working on?

I put up a new Rifftides post this morning. I recently wrote the Mosaic MJQ notes just mentioned, and a lengthy historical analysis of the musical connections among Spain, Africa, the Caribbean and New Orleans for the Miles Español project. There is another jazz book in the works, but it has a long way to go. A second novel that I started some time ago keeps calling to me from the depths of the computer, where it has been imprisoned.  

You have done a lot of writing over the years on the subject of jazz. Have you given any thought to “collecting” these and leaving them with a college or university library for future reference?

Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers is a collection. So, more or less, is the next book. That’s one way of making the work available beyond the moment. No university has been pounding on my door but all reasonable offers will be considered.

Jazz Trumpet A Reader Volume 1 by Steven A. Cerra

 Currently with the publisher; should be available shortly on Amazon as both a paperback and an eBook.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Preface, p. 8

Introduction, pp. 9-14

Chapter 1. King, Pops and Bix in Chicago from "We Called It Music" by Eddie Condon, pp. 15-19

Chapter 2. Joe "King" Oliver - "For the Comfort of the People" by Whitney Balliett, pp. 20-25

Chapter 3. King Oliver and His Creole Jazz Band by Frederic Ramsey, Jr., pp. 26-44

Chapter 4. Louis Armstrong (The Once and Future King) by Gary Giddins, pp. 45-57

Chapter 5. Stomp Off, Let's Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong by Ricky Riccardi - Reviewed by Steven A. Cerra, pp. 58-64

Chapter 6 Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong by Ricky Riccardi - Reviewed by Steven A. Cerra, pp. 65-68

Chapter 7. Ricky Riccardi: An Interview with the Author of “What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years,” pp. 69-76

Chapter 8. Pleasants on Pops - Louis Armstrong by Henry Pleasants, pp. 77-85

Chapter 9. Louis Armstrong: Views of "Pops" By 7 Jazz Trumpeters - Steven A. Cerra, Ed., pp. 86-90

Chapter 10. Armstrong and Handy - An Unbeatable Combination - Robert Goodrich, pp. 91-98

Chapter 11. Louis Armstrong's Serious Side by Larry Tye, pp. 99-102

Chapter 12. POPS (A Life of Louis Amstrong) by Terry Teachout, pp. 103-115

Chapter 13. Pops - Dave and Iola Brubeck - The Real Ambassadors by Steven A. Cerra and Ricky Riccardi, pp. 116-125

Chapter 14. The Real Ambassadors by Keith Hatschek, pp. 126-132

Chapter 15. Bix Beiderbecke - Indiana Twilights by Richard Sudhalter, pp. 133-138

Chapter 16. Otis on Bix, pp. 139-142

Chapter 17. Bix Biederbecke and Dick Sudhalter, Part 1, pp. 143-148

Chapter 18. Bix Biederbecke and Dick Sudhalter, Part 2, pp. 149-153

Chapter 19. Hoagy and Bix - "In A Mist" by Hoagy Carmichael, pp. 154-161

Chapter 20. Bubber Miley in the Jazz Literature - Steven A. Cerra Ed., pp. 162-171

Chapter 21. Jabbo Smith - "Starting at the Top" - Whitney Balliett, pp. 172-176

Chapter 22. Focus on Jabbo Smith - Don DeMicheal, pp. 177-179 

Chapter 23. Henry "Red" Allen by Steven A. Cerra and Whitney Balliett, pp. 180-184

Chapter 24. Henry "Red" Allen by Martin Williams, pp. 185-189

Chapter 25. Cootie Williams by Stanley Dance, pp. 190-198

Chapter 26. Cootie Williams and Jo Jones by Whitney Balliett, pp. 199-201

Chapter 27. Buck Clayton: A Brief Biography” by George Hoefer, pp. 202-205

Chapter 28. Buck Clayton by Stanley Dance, pp. 206-212

Chapter 29. "Travelin' Man: The Peripatetic Buck Clayton" by Helen McNamara, pp. 213-218

Chapter 30.  Harry James - A Six Part Feature - Steven A. Cerra, Editor, pp. 219-251

Chapter 31. Bunny Berigan - Whitney Balliett, pp. 252-255

Chapter 32. Bunny Berigan: "Boy with A Horn" - George T. Simon, Gunther Schuller and Richard  Sudhalter, pp. 256-265

Chapter 33. Bunny Berigan by Dan Morgenstern, pp. 266-270

Chapter 34. "With Jimmy McPartland Swing's The Thing" by George Hoefer, pp. 271-275

Chapter 35. "A Good One-Two Jimmy and Marian McPartland” by Whitney Balliett, pp. 276-281

Chapter 36. Louie Prima - 1910-1978: A  Brief Tribute, pp. 282-284

Chapter 37. Remembering Louie Prima [1910-1978] and Wingy Manone [1900-1982] - Lloyd Rausch, pp. 285-290

Chapter 38. “Louis Prima - Show Time!” by Scott Shea, pp. 291-298

Chapter 39. "Muggsy Still A Driving Communicative Jazzman" by George Hoefer, pp. 299-304

Chapter 40. Red Nichols by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, pp. 305-307

Chapter 41. Red Nichols and His Circle by Richard Sudhalter, pp. 308-316

Chapter 42. Rex Stewart by Inez M. Cavanaugh, pp. 317-321

Chapter 43. Ray Nance by Stanley Dance, pp. 322-328

Chapter 44. Doc Cheatham by Whitney Balliett, pp. 329-334

Chapter 45. Taft Jordan by Stanley Dance, pp. 335-345

Chapter 46. Shorty Baker by Stanley Dance, pp. 346-348

Chapter 47. Charlie Shavers - John Chilton and Gunther Schuller, pp. 349-352

Chapter 48. “All Schools Dig Bobby Hackett” - Pat Harris and Art Hodes, pp. 353-360

Chapter 49. “More Ingredients - Bobby Hackett” - Whitney Balliett, pp. 361-368

Chapter 50. Harry "Sweets" Edison - The Barbara Gardner Interview, pp. 369-373

Bunny Berigan: Boy With A Horn

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“As always, there is Berigan’s incomparable – and irrepressible – swing. … Berigan’s sense of swing was an innate talent, a given talent, a feeling beyond study and calculation, one that Berigan heard in the playing of both Beiderbecke and Armstrong, but which he synthesized into his own personal rhythmic idiom.”

“Berigan’s other great asset was the extraordinary beauty of his tone. Though technically based on perfect breath support, the purity—and amplitude—of his tone was controlled at the moment of emission by his inner ear, as with any great artist renowned for his tone. Berigan could project in his mind and ear a certain sound, and then the physical muscles (embouchure, breathing, fingers) would, in coordination, produce the desired result.”

- Gunther Schuller, The Swing Era

“If you could have seen him out on that stage in a white suit, with that shiny gold trumpet, blond hair and gray penetrating eyes – well, if it didn’t knock you over when he started to play, ain’t nothin’ gonna knock you down.”

- Joe Bushkin, Jazz pianist

For the first half century or so of its existence, trumpet players were the Rock guitarists of Jazz.

It seemed that every aspiring young musician wanted to play a shiny, brass trumpet much like today’s youngsters want an electric guitar hanging from their hip.

Of course, it was all Louis Armstrong’s fault.  Pops started the craze in the mid-1920s when as a member of King Oliver’s Band [another trumpeter] he stood up to take his memorable solos at Lincoln Gardens in downtown Chicago.

Pops was the first Jazz soloist and he took them on a gleaming, glittery and glossy horn that formed the center of attraction for many Jazz groups, big and small, that span Jazz styles as diverse as Dixieland, Swing, Bop, Modern, Free and Fusion.

The list is endless: Jimmy McPartland, Red Nichols, Henry “Red” Allen, Harry James, Cootie Williams, Rex Stewart, Ray Nance, Buck Clayton, Harry James, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Howard McGhee, Harry “Sweets” Edison and Miles Davis, all continued “the boy with a horn” tradition that Pops started with his clarion calls to Jazz.

There seems to be something ill-fated with Jazz trumpet players whose first or last  name begins or ends with the letter “B.” Bix Beiderbecke, Booker Little, Sonny Berman, Clifford Brown, Bunny Berigan – none made it to thirty years of age. Heck, Berigan just barely made it beyond as he died in 1942 at the age of thirty-three. In some respects, these marvelous trumpet players scarcely made it out of boyhood making the phrase – “Boy with a Horn – an apt one, indeed.

I didn’t know much about Bunny Berigan other than that his version of I Can’t Get Started was immensely popular and became a kind of “acid test” for trumpeters after it was recorded in 1936 in much the same way that Pops’ West End Blues had dazzled them about ten years earlier.

So I turned, as I so often do when I’m looking for information about The Swing Era, to George T. Simon’s The Big Bands, Gunther Schuller’s The Swing Era and Richard Sudhalter, Lost Chords, White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915-1945.

© -George T. Simon, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"I Can’t Get Started was Bunny Berigan's theme song. It was also a pretty apt description of his career as a bandleader.

Bunny could have and should have succeeded handsomely in front of his own band. He was a dynamic trumpeter who had already established himself publicly with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey via brilliant trumpet choruses that many of the swing fans must have known by heart — like those for Benny on "King Porter Stomp," "Jingle Bells" and "Blue Skies" and for Tommy on "Marie" and "Song of India." So great were Berigan's fame and popularity that he won the 1936 Metronome poll for jazz trumpeters with five times as many votes as his nearest competitor!

It wasn't just the fans who appreciated him, either. His fellow musicians did too. One of them — I think it was either Glenn Miller or Tommy Dorsey —  once told me that few people realized how great a trumpeter Bunny was, because when he played his high notes he made them sound so full that hardly anyone realized how high he actually was blowing! Red McKenzie, referring to the notes that Bunny did and didn't make, once said, ‘If that man wasn't such a gambler, everybody would 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.’

All of these men, Miller, Dorsey, McKenzie, plus many others, including Hal Kemp, featured Bunny on their recordings. How come Kemp? Because his was the first big name band Bunny ever played with. Hal had heard him when he was traveling through Wisconsin in 1928, was attracted by his style, but, according to his arranger-pianist, John Scott Trotter, ‘didn't hire him because Bunny had the tinniest, most awful, ear-splitting tone you ever heard.’ Berigan broadened his sound considerably (it eventually became one of the "fattest" of all jazz trumpet tones), came to New York, joined Frank Cornwall's band, was rediscovered by Kemp (‘Bunny had discovered Louis Armstrong by then,’ Trotter points out), joined the band, then went off into the radio and recording studios (he cut some great sides with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra) and was at CBS doing numerous shows, including one of his own, which featured Bunny's Blue Boys, when Goodman talked him into joining his band. He stayed six months, returned to the studios and then joined Dorsey (or a few weeks—long enough to make several brilliant records.

Even while he was with Tommy's band, Bunny began organizing his own, with a great deal of help from Dorsey and his associates. First he assembled an eleven-piece outfit, which recorded several sides for Brunswick and which really wasn't very good, and then in the spring of 1937 he debuted with a larger group at the Pennsylvania Roof in New York.

The band showed a great deal of promise, and it continued to show a great deal of promise for the close to three years of its existence. It never fulfilled that promise, and the reason was pretty obvious: Bunny Berigan was just not cut out to be a bandleader.

As a sideman, as a featured trumpeter, as a friend, as a drinking companion, be was terrific. The guys in his band loved him, and for good reason. He was kind and considerate. Unlike Goodman, Dorsey and Miller, he was not a disciplinarian—neither toward his men nor, unfortunately, toward himself. Playing for Bunny Berigan was fun. And it was exciting too — like the night a hurricane blew the roof off Boston's Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where the band had just begun to establish itself, or the time it showed up for a Sunday-night date in Bristol, Connecticut, only to find Gene Krupa's band already on the stand (Berigan had gotten his towns slightly mixed—he was supposed to have been in Bridgeport, Connecticut, that night.)

The band projected its share of musical kicks too. On that opening Penn­sylvania Roof engagement, it unveiled a new tenor sax find from Toronto, Georgie Auld, who perhaps didn't blend too well with the other saxes but who delivered an exciting, booting solo style. It had a good arranger and pianist in Joe Lipman and several other impressive soloists, including a girl singer, Ruth Bradley, who was also a clarinet player.

Berigan was good at discovering musicians. Ray Conniff started with him, and so did two brilliant New York lads, a swinging pianist named Joe Bushkin and a rehabilitated tap-dancer-turned-drummer named Buddy Rich.

The band recorded a batch of sides for Victor; some were good, some were pretty awful. Naturally his "I Can't Get Started" was his most important. (He had recorded the number earlier with a pickup band for Vocalion, and to many musicians this was a more inspired version.) Also impressive were "Mahogany Hall Stomp," "Frankie and Johnny," "The Prisoner's Song," "Russian Lullaby," several Bix Beiderbecke numbers and a few pop tunes, especially if Kitty Lane happened to be the singer. He featured other girl singers, such as Ruth Gaylor, Gail Reese and Jayne Dover, and sang occa­sionally himself, but not very well.

As Berigan's self-discipline grew even more lax, his band became less successful. By late 1939 it was obvious that as a leader, Bunny was not going anywhere. Early in 1940 he gave up.

Almost immediately his friend Tommy Dorsey offered him a job. Bunny accepted and sparked the Dorsey band to brilliant heights, blowing great solos and infusing new life into a band that had begun to falter. (For a sample of how Bunny was playing then, try Tommy's record of "I'm Nobody's Baby.")

Bunny's stay lasted only six months, however. There was marked disagree­ment about why he suddenly left the band on August 20, 1940, after a radio broadcast at the NBC studios. Dorsey said, "I just couldn't bring him around, so I had to let him go. I hated to do it." Berigan, on the other hand, complained about not "enough chance to play. Most of the time I was just sitting there waiting for choruses, or else I was just a stooge, leading the band, while Tommy sat at somebody else's table."

So he reorganized and for a while the new band, composed entirely of unknown musicians, showed promise, according to writer Amy Lee, who reviewed a May, 1941, air shot from Palisades Park in New Jersey: "That fifteen minutes was enough to tell the listener that Bunny is playing more magnificently than ever, that he has a band with a beat which fairly lifts dancers or listeners right off their seat or feet ... his range, his conception, his lip, and his soul are without compare, and to hear him again is the kick of all listening kicks."

But again Bunny couldn't get started quite enough to last. The combination of too many one-nighters and unhealthy living began to catch up with him again. The last time I heard the band was in a Connecticut ballroom during the summer of 1941, and for one who admired Bunny's playing so tremen­dously and who liked him so much personally, it was quite a shattering experience. I reported in Metronome:

"The band was nothing. And compared with Berigan standards, Bunny's blowing was just pitiful. He sounded like a man trying to imi­tate himself, a man with none of the inspiration and none of the technique of the real Berigan.

He looked awful, too. He must have lost at least thirty pounds. His clothes were loose-fitting; even his collar looked as if it were a couple of sizes too large for him.

Apparently, though, he was in good spirits. He joked with friends and talked about the great future he thought his band had. But you had a feeling it would never be. And when, after intermission, Bunny left the bandstand, not to return for a long time, and some trumpeter you'd never heard of before came down to front the band, play Bunny's parts, and spark the outfit more than its leader had, you realized this was enough, and you left the place at once, feeling simply awful."

Shortly thereafter he gave up the band,  and Peewee Erwin, who had replaced him in both Goodman's and Dorsey's outfit, took it over. Berigan declared bankruptcy. He was obviously quite ill, but he carried on doggedly, fronting yet another band. He broke down several times. He was hospitalized in Pennsylvania with a severe case of pneumonia. More than anything and almost anyone else, Bunny needed a rest and help. But probably out of sheer loyalty to his men, and faced with the responsibilities of supporting a wife and two young children, he refused to give up.

On June 1, 1942, he was scheduled to play a job at Manhattan Center in New York. The band showed up. Bunny didn't. He was seriously ill in Polyclinic Hospital with cirrhosis of the liver. Benny Goodman, playing at the Paramount Theater, brought over his sextet and filled in as a gesture of friendship toward his first star trumpeter.

On June 2, 1942, Bunny Berigan died, a financially and physically broken man. like another wonderful trumpeter with the same initials, Bix Beiderbecke, whose horn had also been stilled a decade earlier by too much booze, Bunny lived much too short a life. He was only thirty-three when he died. And yet during that brief span, he grew to be a giant on the jazz scene — per­haps not as a big bandleader but certainly as one of the best-liked musician-leaders of his day and one of the most inspiring jazz soloists of all time.”

Gunther Schuller offers this view of Bunny, his music and his significance in the Jazz World.

© -Gunther Schuller, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Jazz loves its legends, especially its alcoholic martyrs. To qualify for such can­onization you had to die early, preferably from too much drinking; and it is best that you were white — and played the trumpet. The two BB's—Bix Beiderbecke and Bunny Berigan—were ideal candidates, and they are idolized and romanti­cized to this day, while Jabbo Smith, Frankie Newton, Tommy Ladnier, and John Nesbitt, who either died prematurely or were forced into early retirement, are allowed to languish in quiet oblivion.

On the other hand it doesn't pay to live a long and active healthy life: that will get you very few points in the legend business. Berigan was unquestionably one of the trumpet giants of the thirties. But as one reads much of the jazz literature, especially in its more anecdotal manifestations, one could easily gain the impression that, after Armstrong, there was only Berigan, and that such pre-Gillespie trumpeters as Roy Eldridge, Henry "Red" Allen, Rex Stewart, Cootie Williams, Buck Clayton, Harry Edison, Harry James, Charlie Spivak, Ziggy Elman, Sy Oliver, "Hot Lips" Page, Taft Jordan, Eddie Tomkins, Bobby Hackett, Charlie Teagarden, Mannie Klein, and a host of others simply never existed or were inconsequential peripheral figures.

Such biased writing takes much encouragement from Armstrong's oft-quoted response to a question about his successors: "The best of them? That's easy, It was Bunny." (That must have made Roy Eldridge happy!) Whatever Armstrong's reasons for making that comment might have been—if indeed it is authentic and not taken out of context—the fact is that Berigan, as good as he was, was by no means as unique as his most ardent admirers would have us believe.

That he was a superbly talented and in his early years a technically assured trumpet player is beyond argument; but so were all the above-listed trumpet players, some even more consistent or technically spectacular than Berigan. That he was a superior musician with superb musical instincts and a relentlessly creative mind is also unarguable; but so were Eldridge, Allen, Stewart, and Cootie. That he was always a moving lyric player is equally true; but so were a number of others, particularly Cootie and Ladnier, Clayton and Hackett.

And while a lyric, singing approach to the trumpet was Berigan's forte, players like Stewart, Newton, and Eldridge could create eloquent lyric statements, as required, in addition to other kinds of personal expressions. That Berigan used the full range of the trumpet, exploiting especially the low register, is undisputable; but so did Eldridge and Jabbo Smith, and they indeed expanded the top range much more vigorously. That Berigan took chances in his flights of imagination is also undeniable; but it would be impossible to deny that Eldridge did, and that, in fact, he did so within a more venturesome and complex style, and — it must be said — with greater technical consistency.

Berigan's idolization by certain authors has even led to the deification of his mistakes. A fluff by Berigan is cherished in those circles as some glorious creative moment, which no one else could have dared to imagine. The fact is that, from a brass-playing point of view, many of Berigan's missed notes—discounting the final years when his deteriorating health really affected his coordination—occur not in his technically most daring passages but in relatively ordinary ones. Some of his more spectacular trumpet feats are the result of his most daring concep­tions, whereas the more conservative musical ideas are often those which are technically blemished.

All of this is not to denigrate Berigan's talent and achievements but merely to put them in perspective and to demythologize somewhat his position in jazz history. He does occupy an important role in the jazz trumpet's development in that he, more than anyone else, fused elements of both Armstrong and Beiderbecke into a new, distinctive, personal voice.

By all accounts Berigan, like Eldridge, seems to have discovered Armstrong relatively late; and when he did, it was primarily the Armstrong already em­barked on a career as a lyric balladeer and bravura soloist. But it would be wrong to assume that Berigan was, even in the early stages of his career, a mere Armstrong imitator … Berigan not only had his own sound and melodic identity but also had the ability to create fluent, well-structured explorative solos….

“Hallmarks of Berigan mature style are remarkable fluency in the lowest range of the trumpet, an area that Armstrong had begun to explore, but which Roy Eldridge and Berigan were to make an integral and consistent part of the trumpet’s technical/expressive vocabulary,  Berigan’s inventiveness of imagination in his ability to adroitly combine the expected with the unexpected and a glorious rich golden singing tone.” [paraphrase]…

One of the many musicians who was strongly impressed by Berigan's talent was Benny Goodman. Benny and Bunny had often worked together in the stu­dios in the early thirties in pickup bands (sometimes led by Goodman) and, as mentioned, on the Let's Dance broadcast series. When Goodman took his band on its first transcontinental road trip in the summer of 1935, he hired Berigan as his leading soloist.

The recordings made by the Goodman band with Berigan are some of the best representations of both artists. Certainly Berigan's two solos on King Porter Stomp (recorded July 1, 1935) must count as among his very finest creative achievements. His performance here represents the mature Beri­gan in full opulent flowering.

Berigan's solo work on King Porter exemplifies his unerring sense of form, a virtually infallible clarity of statement. His two solos, one muted, the other open horn, are miniature compositions which many a writing-down composer would be envious of having created, even after days of work. This structural logic trans­mits itself even to the lay listener in the absolute authoritativeness of his playing.

The ingredients in both solos are really quite simple: great melodic beauty combined with logic and structural balance. Every note, every motivic cell, every phrase leads logically to the next with a Mozartean classic inevitability. And each phrase, whether heard in 2-bar or 8-bar segments, has its own balanced structur­ing and symmetry. Take, for example, the last eight bars of his first solo (Ex. 18). Starting on the syncopated high Cs, the phrase falls to its midpoint, rests there a moment (in bar 20) and then rises again to the final tonic note. And whereas the first four bars use syncopation as an element of surprise, of swing and of tension, the last four bars lie squarely on the beat, providing a wonderful sense of resolution not only to the phrase but to the whole solo….

…symmetrical balancing gives the solo a wonderful equilibrium, seemingly a natural gift with Berigan.

But this is not all. As always, there is Berigan’s incomparable – and irrepressible – swing. … Berigan’s sense of swing was an innate talent, a given talent, a feeling beyond study and calculation, one that Berigan heard in the playing of both Beiderbecke and Armstrong, but which he synthesized into his own personal rhythmic idiom.

Berigan’s other great asset was the extraordinary beauty of his tone. Though technically based on perfect breath support, the purity—and amplitude—of his tone was controlled at the moment of emission by his inner ear, as with any great artist renowned for his tone. Berigan could project in his mind and ear a certain sound, and then the physical muscles (embouchure, breathing, fingers) would, in coordination, produce the desired result.”

© -Richard Sudhalter, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“In the half-century since his death, Bunny Berigan still inspires ecstasy in those who knew him, worked with him, and admired him from afar. It's in the Joe Bushkin utterance that begins this chapter, rapt acknowledgment of a reality quite beyond the events of an ill-starred trumpeter's life.

"Bunny hit a note — and it had pulse," said clarinetist Joe Dixon, a member of Berigan's band in 1937-38. "You can talk about one thing and another — beautiful, clear, big tone, range, power — and sure, that's part of it. But only part of it."

He gropes for the one elusive, all-encapsulating thought. "It's hard to de­scribe, but his sound seemed to, well, soar. He'd play lead, and the whole band would soar with him, with or without the rhythm section. There was drama in what he did — he had that ability, like Louis [Armstrong], to make any tune his own. But in the end all that says nothing. You had to hear him, that's all."

You had to hear him. Hyperbole and magic, pressed into service yet again to explain the inexplicable.

But what is the reality of this trumpet player, dead, emptied of life-force, at age thirty-three? Is Bunny Berigan, as more than a few chroniclers would have us believe, merely a very good musician whose significance has been exaggerated by generations of votaries? Or is something else at work in the minds and mem­ories of those who heard him?

George "Pee Wee" Erwin, who followed Berigan into Tommy Dorsey's trum­pet section, insisted: "I don't think you could ever really appreciate [Bunny] unless you stood in front of that horn and heard it. I've never heard anyone who could match it. When he'd hit a note it would be like a cannon coming out of that horn. And I'm not speaking of sheer volume—I'm speaking of the body of the sound." …

Steve Lipkins, who played lead trumpet with Dorsey and with Berigan's own band, declared him "the first jazz player we'd heard at that time who really played the trumpet well, from bottom to top, evenly and strongly throughout. Besides that, he had something special in the magic department — and you had to hear that to understand it." [Emphasis, mine]

Many trumpeters had power, beauty, and density of tone. Manny (sometimes Mannie) Klein had near-perfect control in all registers, too; he could lip-trill the high notes just as adeptly as Berigan. Roy Eldridge was a more daring high-wire walker, leaping and swooping and racing around his horn like a clarinetist; Sonny Dunham, with the Casa Loma Orchestra, had a keen sense of drama; Harry James could whip audiences into a hysterical frenzy, and his Goodman band section-mate Ziggy Elman was a powerhouse in both solo and lead. Henry "Red" Allen was probably more creative, Rex Stewart more abandoned. Cootie Williams—in his open-horn moments, at least—equally majestic (hear his opening chorus to El­lington's 1934 "Troubled Waters").

But it's hard to imagine any of those men, however accomplished, inspiring talk of "something special in the magic department." Berigan, then, can't be understood as simply an amalgam of skills and attributes. There is another di­mension; even his less distinguished recorded work exudes a sense of something transcendental, unmatched by any other trumpet soloist of the 1930s.

The only comparison that comes to mind is the mighty, all-pervasive—and now increasingly mythic—figure of Louis Armstrong. And indeed, Armstrong was at pains to make clear that "my boy Bunny Berigan" was in a class by himself "Now there's a boy whom I've always admired for his tone, soul, technique, his sense of 'phrasing' and all. To me, Bunny can't do no wrong in music."

At the end of the 1920s, when Berigan arrived in New York, many white brassmen admired Louis Armstrong, but few attempted to emulate him. Jack Purvis had been the trailblazer with his recording of "Copyin' Louis," discussed in the previous chapter. Tommy Dorsey, who in those days doubled regularly on trumpet, brought to the horn an Armstrong-like intensity quite different from his trombone playing.

But most white trumpeters were under the spell of Bix Beiderbecke, whose introspective sensibility wedded romanticism with a classicist's sense of order and structure. Where Louis's solos were bold, emotionally dense statements, painted in bright primary colors, Bix's were more subdued, richly layered, nuanced.

That polarity created a dilemma for musicians who admired both men. Rex Stewart, one of Berigan's first friends in New York, confessed to being unable to make up his mind between Beiderbecke and Armstrong and embraced both in a most original manner. The solos of John Nesbitt, arranger and trumpeter with McKinney's Cotton Pickers, show the same sort of division.

But the duality found its most fully realized expression in Bunny Berigan….

In 1932, Bunny Berigan hit his stride….

Berigan was now one of the most polished and versatile trumpet men in the music business. His range was big, glowing, and secure all the way up to his high G. His control of high-note lip-trills was nonpareil. His flexibility was re­markable even by today's advanced standards of technique: he could vault from the lowest to the highest reaches of his horn with the same matter-of-factness displayed on his records with Kemp, but with ever greater confidence and polish, and no loss of tonal size or quality.

He used this technical equipment in shaping solos often stunning in their power to move a listener—something special, as Steve Lipkins put it, in the magic department; it is this quality, above all, that sets Berigan apart from even such supremely gifted contemporaries as Roy Eldridge.

Comparison of Eldridge and Berigan is instructive. Each exploits the dramatic potential of his instrument, but to somewhat different ends. From his first ap­pearance on record, the 1935 "(Lookie, Lookie, Lookie) Here Comes Cookie," with Teddy Hill's orchestra, Eldridge is clearly an unprecedented force in jazz trumpet playing. His ability to get around the horn is awe-inspiring, combining Stewart's flexibility and Jabbo Smith's daredevil acrobatics—but with greater ac­curacy and sense of purpose.

Nothing in any trumpeter's work up to that time remotely approaches the mile-a-minute stunt flying of "Heckler's Hop," "After You've Gone," or "Swing Is Here." But Eldridge (in common with Dizzy Gillespie, whom he directly in­spired) did not form his approach out of the examples of either Armstrong's stateliness or Beiderbecke's introspection. He admired Red Nichols—but largely, he added, for the latter's fluency and command of his horn. It was in saxophon­ists, notably Coleman Hawkins, that Roy Eldridge found his role model. Though capable of eloquent moments at slow tempos ("Where the Lazy River Goes By," "Falling in Love Again," and, with Billie Holiday, "I Wished on the Moon"), the closest he gets to the brooding majesty of Berigan's utterances on the 1935 "Nothin' but the Blues" (under Gene Gifford's name) is his two sombre, grieving choruses on Teddy Wilson's 1936 "Blues in C-sharp Minor."

But these two trumpeters are singers of quite different songs. Berigan was, in one colleague's admiring phrase, "the ultimate romantic." His every solo flight, so expansive in the Armstrong manner, so reminiscent of the great tenors of Italian grand opera, also includes (and here he differs sharply from Eldridge) something of the sentimental. Never dominant, seldom even rising to the surface (quite unlike the saccharine excesses of Harry James, Ziggy Elman, or, at times, Charlie Shavers), it's nonetheless an ingredient.

Eldridge's sharply honed competitiveness seems quite at odds with Berigan's more bardic tendencies. Unlike Roy, Bunny seems never to think in terms of effect, display or spectacle. In all his recorded work it's hard to find a solo, even a single phrase, that seems calculated to impress. Berigan doesn't compete: he prefers to follow his instincts as a teller of stories.

If, as in his astonishing break toward the end of "That Foolish Feeling," he leaps from his horn's next-to-lowest note, a concert F below middle C, two and one-half octaves to a concert C above, he's not doing it to show that he can do it, or to intimidate potential challengers; he's doing it solely because his sense of phrase, balance, and dramatic narrative tells him that's where he must go.

Relevant here, if unlikely, is an observation by Edgar Allan Poe. Setting out guidelines for the successful short story, he declares, "In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the pre-established design."

Granted, most jazz improvisers work to far more generalized, less "pre-established" designs than do writers; but the jazz­man's art as a (short) storyteller conforms no less strictly to Poe's stated criterion. Each part serves the whole; each phrase moves the story forward, furthers the grand design. This is obvious in the work of Lester Young, of Bix Beiderbecke, of Pee Wee Russell—master storytellers all. And it is richly, gloriously true of Bunny Berigan….

[The April 13, 1936]… version of "I Can't Get Started" is the first of two performances recorded by Berigan sixteen months apart; many listeners prefer it to the latter, rather grander Victor version. It's quite unself-conscious, relaxed, almost carefree: let's just play the damn thing, Bunny seems to say here—if we get it, fine. If we miss, what the hell.

They don't miss. After a thoughtful opening tutti, Berigan sings a chorus in his high, light voice, his fast vibrato lending a sense of vulnerability. Crawford's tenor takes eight bars in a subdued ballad mood, and then it's all Bunny, playing at a bravura peak. Moving easily throughout the entire range of his horn, he climbs at the outset to a titanic high concert D-flat, and E-flat, only to plunge near the end to four broad-toned, sotto voce bars before a final climactic ascent.

There's no minimizing the importance of this three-minute tour de force. It's the apotheosis of Bunny Berigan's art as a soloist in the grand tradition established by Armstrong and illustrates graphically why Louis, while praising Eldridge for his "chops" and others for their various "ingredients," as he was fond of calling them, singled out Berigan as the one who "can't do no wrong in music." He knew what he was hearing.”

This video tribute to Bunny features the famous 1936 original version of I Can’t Get Started, a fitting and sad epithet for his all-too-brief Jazz career.