Rowland “Bunny” Berigan
November 2, 1908 – June 2, 1942
Rowland “Bunny” Berigan was born in Wisconsin in 1908 where he became proficient at the violin and trumpet at a very young age. By his late 20s, he was playing in a local and respected orchestra. Within a couple years, he was getting a lot work as a session man and was soon working with the Dorsey Brothers and Glenn Miller and soon he joined up with Benny Goodman to help define the swing era. As the ’30s came to a close, Berigan was a hot band leader in his own right, employing the likes of Buddy Rich and Ray Conniff. Unfortunately, Berrigan’s business sense wasn’t as strong as his playing abilities, so in 1940 he declared bankruptcy, forcing him to find work in Tommy Dorsey’s band. By this time, many years of alcohol abuse were taking its toll on his body causing him to become hospitalized while on tour. The doctors there discovered that he had a severe case of cirrhosis of the liver and advised him to give up drinking and stop playing the trumpet. Of course he didn’t listen, and on May 30, 1942, he suffered a massive hemorrhage which lead to his death two days later. Many may recognize his “I Can’t Get Started Without You,” from Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.
Probably THE GREATEST trumpeteer of all time! Universally admired by other buglers for his lyric, melodic sense, tempo contortions, and that unmatched TONE which even Armstrong cited as the best he ever heard– no faint praise there! Too bad this perfect hybrid of Red Nichols (or Beiderbecke if you prefer…) and Satchmo made so few recordings at his peak and equally unfortunate he continued recording as his technique collapsed after 1941… truly heartbreaking to hear those old records… I’d like to confiscate and destroy every copy on the planet!
Who knows what depression drove him so fatally to alcohol, but you could HEAR those tears in his unique TONE… really grabs ya by the throat. His solo on “I Cried for You” may be the best trumpet track in history… all those tears….
He alone with Bobby Hackett crafted such perfectly composed solos in his recordings that subsequent bands, arrangers, and players always manage to copy them note for note, even as an ensemble chorus, and Bunny had more of these than anyone else in jazz or any other idiom.
I think I’ll pull out some of those old records right now… maybe convert ’em to MP3s….